SkepticLance

I consider there to be three categories of 'non believer'. 1. Atheist. Someone who asserts there is no God. This seems to me to be as much an article of faith as a theist. 2. Agnostic. That's me. Not willing to assert one way or the other due to lack of evidence. 3. Adenominational. Someone who tends to believe a god or equivalent exists, but is not prepared to accept the narrower belief structure of a particular formal faith - whether Christian, Muslim or other. They do not worship formally, but may pray privately. I think there are a lot of these people out there, who are wrongly classified. The people who are clearly Christian (or other faith) will classify this lot as non believers, which is why I classify them as such - rightly or wrongly.

As a science centred thinker, I believe that credible empirical evidence is needed before I adopt any specific belief. I noted myself as agnostic, because I do not believe such evidence exists for or against any kind of god.

Taurine is manufactured inside the human body, and is present in sufficient amounts if the person is healthy. If not, then it is up to a doctor to prescribe remedies. Self remedy via energy drink or other means is not wise. Vitamins are required to a certain minimal level, and excess is either toxic, or simply excreted. For example, vitamin C is required at 50 mgs per day. If you take in 60 mgs, the excess is squirted out by your kidneys. A healthy, balanced diet in normal people provides all the vitamins you need, and supplements in pills or energy drinks are not required, and are utterly useless. Not to mention, liable to lighten your wallet. In short, the only 'energy giving' substances in energy drinks are sugar and caffeine. Nether should be consumed in excess, and too much energy drink is unwise.

waiforufo I think that it is the availability of intoxicants that leads to their use, more than some social factor. After all, there are heaps of cases of animals becoming hooked on alcohol or other drugs, once humans make these available. I knew a parrot that was owned by a publican. It gained freedom inside the bar whenever it was possible. (the owner generally tried to limit this), and begged beer from patrons. By the end of each evening of freedom, it was wasted. Humans are not that different. If drugs or alcohol are available, we tend to use them, regardless of social norms. Even in Muslim countries, where alcohol is nominally banned, lots of people drink in secret.

Reaper We are now into a slightly different form of discussion, but still a very valid question. In my own opinion, science in the West began with such lunminaries as Francis Bacon, Robert Hooke and Isaac Newton. It was not their discoveries that mattered, though that was important. More, it was their method. Before their time, some pretty weird methods were accepted, including Act of Faith, various forms of logic, superstitious belief etc. Those guys nailed down the need for empirical evidence. Only real world observation and experiment counted. I think that was the big change that kicked off modern science. Why did this not happen in China? I do not know. Perhaps the culture was opposed to it. After all, religion in the West did its damnedest to stop modern science, with persecution of great thinkers. However, I suspect that, once writing was widespread, the development of science had to follow sooner or later. After all, various forms developed over the past 3000 years in a number of cultures. Galen in Rome. Archimedes in Greece. Arabic science. China. And the scientific revolution in Europe.

Cooling tower technology is well developed, efficient, and has the bugs ironed out. In other words, it is the smart way to go for cooling reactors. Nuclear waste is a problem mainly in the political sense. There are excellent disposal systems available to us, but politically active lobby groups do not permit this to happen. Every time such a system is mooted, some bunch of activists oppose it, and our democratic governments listen to the lobbyists. In the 1940's and 1950's, the standard disposal system for an awful lot of nuclear waste was to put it into steel 200 litre (40 gallon) drums and drop them into the deep ocean. It has been calculated that, at normal corrosion rates at deep ocean temperatures, there is now no steel left! All the nuclear waste has entered the deep ocean - some as sediment, and some as solution. In spite of strenuous efforts, no-one has been able to measure any environmental damage. The Soviet Union used to dissolve nuclear waste in strong acids, and dilute them massively in water, and then send it via pipeline into the Arctic Ocean. To date, no-one has been able to measure any environmental damage. In other words, nuclear waste can be disposed of safely. My preferred option is to place it in secure storage for up to 20 years, to permit the short half life isotopes to decay, and then dissolve it in strong acid, then heavily dilute and then dispose of in the deep ocean. This technique is permanent. You need not even think about it thereafter. The total tonnage of actual radioactive isotopes produced annually world wide (concentrated waste) is less than 200 tonnes. This dispersed in the oceans will eventually reach a concentration of 1 part in 5,000,000,000,000,000. The contribution to ocean radioactivity will be way less than background. While it will initially be somewhat more concentrated, it will disperse quickly and environmental damage is likely to be zero, if the initial dilution and dispersion is done with proper care.

Thanks for the reference, Reaper. It contained the following statement : "This spring, after nearly 20 years of research, the team published its findings in a book entitled The Origins of Agriculture in the Lowland Neotropics. In one study, they measured squash phytoliths from a sequence of layers at Vegas Site 80, a coastal site bordering the tropical forest of southwestern Ecuador. From associated shell fragments as well as the carbon trapped inside the phytoliths themselves, they were able to carbon-date the microfossils. A sharp increase in phytolith size indicated that early Ecuadorians had domesticated squash, likely Cucurbita moschata, by 10,000 years ago--some 5000 years earlier than some archaeologists thought farming began there." This kind of answers my earlier query about why could agriculture not start in the tropics. It looks as though it may well have done, quite early.

There are many societies that had no intoxicating drugs. In my country, the native people (the Maori) has no alcohol or other intoxicants. The Australian aboriginees (except for one small tribe) had no drugs. However, it is clear that these societies, with no experience of alcohol, seem particularly prone to abusing it when it is introduced. My own inclination is towards alcohol, since I enjoy it so much. I love looking at the sea, either from my lovely deck, or from the cockpit of a boat, and having this accompanied by a suitable alcoholic beverage, with its intoxicating effect, enhances my pleasure. In addition, my experience is that alcohol improves social gathering, increasing the convivial mood. However, I was interested to see if many people agreed with me. My own view is towards net benefit, but this may be a personal bias.

Does anyone have good information on where and when agriculture started? I know it spread so rapidly that it often looked like it began simultaneously all over.

Mr Skeptic You may be on to something with the grain storage idea. Tropical crops do not need to be stored, since growing and harvesting is often a year round process. It may be simply that food is abundant in the tropics, and agriculture did not prove necessary to a population whose population size was trimmed by predation and by disease, rather than by hunger.

ecoli Obviously we cannot make an objective determination of which is greater, but this is a question of opinion. What do you personally feel, and why?

Alcohol has been a part of my entire adult life. As a teenager working on my father's farm, harvesting hay, a cold beer was the reward after a hard and hot day's work. Pure pleasure! There is no doubt that we drink alcoholic drinks for the drug high. Whisky without the kick would be a revolting drink, but we soon learn to enjoy the taste, since it is associated with pleasurable feelings. Yet alcohol is harmful. It leads to social ills, such as alcoholism, and nasty drunks beating up their wives. It causes drivers to crash and kill people. It leads to cirrhosis of the liver, brain damage, and an increase in cancer rates. It causes immense harm to society. Yet it also causes enormous pleasure. It is a social lubricant assisting in forming relationships. It makes ordinary activities most enjoyable. Some of my best moments have been sailing a yacht with a cold beer to enhance the pleasure. What do you think? Is alcohol a net detrement or a net benefit to society? Is the added pleasure given to billions of people justification for the harm received by hundreds of millions? What is your view, and why?

DH I am not arguing. I am quite aware of what the historical data suggests as to the origin of agriculture. I am aware that the early records are of cultivation of grain. I wonder, though, why agriculture did not begin in the tropics? I see no reason to bar it. Certainly, the potential crops existed there. It is probable that agriculture in temperate regions was prevented by extreme weather during the last glaciation period. The beginning of agriculture seems to have been about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, when the world warmed. Yet the climate must have been suitable in tropical regions right through the previous 100,000 years. Why did agriculture not begin in the warmer parts of the world? I do not believe I have yet seen a credible reason offered. I would be interested to know why.

Again, I state that I am not an expert here, but I do have enough knowledge to make me a bit sceptical of the idea that agriculture could not appear in the tropics. I know that polynesians reached South America a long time ago, since sweet potatoes (from South America) spread across the Pacific a long time ago. They came to NZ with the first polynesian settlers in 1200 AD. This was way before the first contact with Europeans. I suspect that the first 'agriculture' might have been the coconut. While this did not reach Africa till recent times, it was widespread across the Pacific and Asia many thousands of years ago. Coconuts reproduce with floating fruit that germinate when thrown up on a beach. It is really easy to pick up one of the incredibly abundant germinating fruits and carry it inland, and put it down to grow into a tree in a more convenient location. This level of cultivation might not be termed 'agriculture' but is so simple that it probably happened throughout Asia way before agriculture as we know it was invented.

Reaper I am not expert on tropical crops, but I know that some were easy from the very beginning. Breadfruit grows wild with a fruit that is about the size of a softball, and is rich in starch. It is easy to plant, and requires little tending. Captain Bligh on the Bounty came to the South Pacific with the express purpose of collecting breadfruit seedlings to transplant to the Caribbean, to plant so that cheap and abundant food for slaves was available. Sweet potato came from South America, and is so hardy that it grows very well here in temperate New Zealand. Even better in the tropics. You can grow a whole new plant by simply burying a portion of a sweet potato in the ground. Taro also grows in NZ, though less well than in the tropics. In Fiji, they just replant the green top to get a new crop. Bananas grow well in the wild, and can be replanted by breaking off the buds that grow round the base, and planting them. DH's point about livestock is probably a very good one. However, in the Fiji that I know well, livestock was never used. Agriculture consisted of planting tropical crops by hand with crude stone tools, and this practise was well developed, and very easy, well before the first contact with Europeans. Until then, Fiji was a stone age culture.

To Swansont Your comment about agriculture in the tropics is a bit puzzling. My experience is pretty much limited to South Pacific islands (mainly Fiji) and to tropical Australia. However, I have mixed with 'primitive people' in both Fiji and Papua New Guinea and seen how they grow their food, and it is really easy. The easiest crop of the lot is cassava, which is a staple in Africa as well as the South Pacific. Harvesting and replanting are done almost simultaneously, and in today's world requires just a machete. The whole plant - edible roots and all - is harvested simply by pulling it out of the soil. A single sweep of the machete drops the roots into a basket, and the stalk is then cut into about 4 lengths. Each length is pushed into the ground and sprouts, growing new leaves and eventually produces a new mass of edible roots. Without a machete a primitive person might use a stone edge to achieve the same thing. This crop is so easy to grow, and produces so much food that it is hard to see why agriculture could not arise in the tropics. Slightly more difficult, but still relatively easy, is breadfruit, taro, yams, sweet potato and gourds. Growing wheat, for example, in a temperate zone, is much harder, requiring more expertise, skill, and just plain hard work.

To mooeypoo An orgasm, whether male or female, whether generated by sex, or masturbation, or even third type of stimulation, will generate biochemical changes. For example : there is a release of pleasure giving and pain deadening endorphins. The brain cannot detect the difference between causes, but experiences the effects, of these biochemical changes. Frequent male orgasms, for example, result in a higher background level of testosterone. Again, the effects can be profound, but the brain is not geared to knowing the difference between testosterone from orgasms, and from other sources - even injection. Female orgasms no doubt also generate changes in sex related hormones. I suspect an increase in oxytocin, but I am not up to date on the effects of orgasms on hormone balance in the female body.

That level of growth represents just over 6 doublings of population. In the last 100 years, the human population has increased 6 fold. If we assume a doubling each 100 years (conservative by today's standards!), then to go from 15,000 to 1 million takes 600 years. If we assume a starting base of just 15, to get to 1 million would take 1600 years at that rate of increase. I am not suggesting the population grows at that rate in those primitive times. Just that to get to 1 million in tens of thousands of years is not only possible, but probable. Population growth will stop when the environment imposes limits. However, the diaspora of those times would keep those limits very high. DH I am still a bit dubious about your explanation. I am not sure that there was a real change in culture/technology 70,000 years ago. There is a steady increase in the sophistication of tools and art works over a long period of time, and more recent artifacts (less than 70,000 years) will be more common since they have a better chance of surviving. I believe that the idea of a 'renaissance' some tens of thousands of years ago is a bit controversial among anthropologists for these reasons. Do you think that an evolutionary change of the magnitude and importance that you suggest would leave no changes in brain size/shape that would show in a fossil cranium?

To DH Some good thinking in your post. On the number of geniuses, I agree that this is speculative. I made no pretence that my assumptions were necessarily correct. So can we agree that the number of human geniuses over the 200,000 years of our species existence is somewhere between 400,000 and 10 million? On your point about the drop in human population 70,000 years ago I must disagree. The early craniums of oldest Homo sapiens fossils show a brain size roughly equal to modern man. If there was a surge in intelligence following the depopulation episode, it is not reflected in any increase in brain size. It is also worth noting that the first chipped stone tools dates well back to Homo habilis. I suspect that even they had a fair degree of intelligence. It seems to me unlikely that the genius of before 70,000 years ago was significantly more stupid than today's genius. I suspect that the recovery from the depopulation event was a bit stronger than you suggest. I note that the oldest fossil from Australia is 40,000 years ago (Mungo Man - a skeleton from Lake Mungo in New South Wales). If humanity was populating Australia that soon after the depopulation event, it suggests a strong resurging population growth. In fact, the major extinction event of megafauna in Australia, dated to 55,000 to 60,000 years ago suggests a large human population in Australia at that time. Your point about the isolation of geniuses is probably very valid. A genius who cannot communicate with others, and especially without writing, is not likely to make any significant long term impact.

swansont I think I agree with you that agriculture was a necessary prerequisite. It meant stable, settled societies. Led to villages, towns and cities. A mobile, nomadic culture could not carry the implements for written records. Imagine a primitive group who relied on slabs of wood and charcoal pens to write. Now imagine a genius writing down his scientific observations and making a book to carry. Kind of impossible. However, it could happen in a settlement. That leads me to the question : why did it take so long to develop agriculture. I note the 'coincidence' between the development of agriculture and the end of the last glaciation period, but this should not affect tropical human societies, and most of humanity should have been tropical. Why did they not develop agriculture? After all, agriculture spread through the entire world, including the tropics.

On Maslow. As I pointed out earlier, 'primitive' hunter gatherer societies do not appear to have to spend all their time in getting food. They seem to have adequate liesure, which is why they accumulate such a mass of cultural treasures such as traditional stories, religious myths, songs, dances, and their own style of art works, personal adornment etc. For example : in another article I read by an anthropologist, it was stated that crudely chipped stone tools work just as well as the beautifully sanded and smoothed tools that we see so often in more recent stone age cultures. It appears that enormous extra effort is put in to make these stone tools beautiful, as well as practical. This is not an indicator of a society that has to devote every waking hour to survival. Primitive societies did have the time to develop themselves, though they seem to have pushed this side of their culture into the arts, rather than towards scientific investigation. However, as pointed out earlier, the 'correct' path to development would have to begin with communication and writing. Many methods of making records have developed in the past 3000 years, from coded knots in string, to writing in sand, to clay tablets, slates, papyrus etc. I suspect the first development along the road to science had to be writing. Why did it take till 3000 years ago for the first writing?

I am not making a firm statement that resurrecting neanderthals is desirable or otherwise. However, I do not think the Nuremberg code is relevent. To resurrect a species of intelligent beings is not to mistreat them. Absolutely the reverse. As far as consent is concerned, I think we can safely say that, if it was put to an ancient neanderthal, he would agree that resurrecting his species is better than leaving them extinct. If bringing someone to life is wrong because of lack of consent, then having a baby is wrong for the same reason. I do not think ancient neanderthal culture is required either. That is lost, but so is the culture of ancient Homo sapiens. Modern homer saps is quite happy being raised in a 21st Century culture, and so should a resurrected neanderthal. So which is more unethical? To resurrect an extinct intelligent species, or leave them dead?

Good thoughts. Question for swansont. I cannot speak on this with expertise, but I read an account a while ago by an anthropologist who has studied the San, or Kalahari Bushmen - a recent hunter gatherer society. This account stated that most of the waking hours of the San hunters was devoted to liesure. Hence the rich cultural elements of song and dance. Do you not think this applied to our tribal hunter gatherer ancestors? I have also read a suggestion that human progress was limited by the fact that life in the tropics was easy - hence no incentive to develop new methods of living. This suggestion concluded that the move to the more hostile colder northern climes was needed before development. Does this idea make sense? Another thought. The invention of agriculture 'coincides' with the end of the last glaciation period. Is it possible that the preceding cold held back the potentially progressive societies living to the north?

Sayonara You are perfectly at liberty to dispute my assumptions, if you wish. I am fully aware that they are probably wrong, but I do not think they are so wrong as to deny my conclusion that humankind has had heaps of genius level intellects over the 200,000 odd years before the invention of agriculture. The point about communication is a good one. Also the lack of writing. Perhaps I should have rephrased the question as "Why did it take so long before humans invented writing?"

I am interested in others ideas on this question. Here is a little background speculation. Our species, Homo sapiens, has been in existence for about 200,000 years, give or take a reasonable error factor. A quick calculation. Three assumptions. 1. Definition of a genius is the smartest 0.1% of the population. 2. Average number of humans per generation is about 1 million, globally, over 200,000 years. 3. A generation is 20 years. Thus, in the period before the invention of agriculture 10,000 years ago, a total of about ten million human geniuses were born, lived and died. You can dispute my assumptions and conclusion, but it in inevitable to conclude that an awful lot of genius humans have lived over all those years. How is it, then, with 10 million (or similar high number) geniuses to make their contribution, that it took 200,000 years before the invention of agriculture and then the invention of science as we know it?? Why did science take so long?