Naturalist

Are you serious? Who really asked that question, and what made them think angels were so small? I'm reading this book "Microbe Hunters" that describes the history of microbes, from Leeuwenhoek to Pasteur. It's amazing how everyone blamed diseases on evil spirits until the full discovery microbes and their relationship with humans. I don't know of this part is true, but the author speaks of a group of scientists known as the Invisible Society and how they tested out an experiment that involved "unicorn dust" and a spider. Back then, they believed that placing a spider in a circle of "unicorn dust" (whatever that was, but they made sure they had the substance everyone was talking about) would make paralyze the spider within the circle. You can guess what happened. Of course, it didn't work. (well, even if it would have worked, or would have trapped the spider, there would probably be a physical explanation to it.) Anyway, Leeuwenhoek legacy was born and this so called Invisible Society was born just a while after Galileo Galilee's discoveries.

I guess your going to have to forgive the ignorance I may have, but in " ... it depends on the era of time." I don't understand what you mean by "era of time". What do you mean by "era of Time"?

I think it also has something to do with people back then giving Aristotle so much authority. 500 years ago, you would be considered a fool by your friends if your words contradicted that of the Aristotle. I think some of Aristotle's views were similar to that of the Bible, which many people still today place at the peak of all authority, the Bible is considered the ultimate truth, and to question assertions from it means to lack intelligence. Thanks to many scientists and also some religious people who defended the fruitfulness of real science, away from authoritarianism, things are much different. Galileo Galilee discovered more than just the fact of friction, but he discovered the importance of experiment, and I think this is one reason he is considered a father to modern science.

How straight is this straight line? It would be more interesting if x amount of galaxies spelled out "Jesus is your savior." Uh, sorry, I guess this really doesn't contribute to the thread. I'm with insane alien: I want to know how this strange astronomical behavior is explained by astrophysicists. Hm, Michael J. Longo has posted up quite a few papers: http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Longo_M/0/1/0/all/0/1

Because of the pressure inside a popcorn kernel, water does not vaporize at 100C. Instead, it stays liquid until its temperature is about 175 C, at which point the kernel ruptures and the superheated water turns into steam. How much energy is needed to pop 95 grams of corn if 15 percent of a kernel's mass is water? Assume that the latent heat of vaporization for water at 175C is 0.90 times its value at 100C and that the kernels have an initial temperature of 175C. The part in bold is what I don't understand.

I'm not a YEC, but I can't figure this out: Q1. Wouldn't an age of billions of years cause the earth's magma to run out of radioactive isotopes? C1. One would think so. (Otherwise, a mechanism to replenish the radioactive isotopes would have to be found.) However, newly-formed rocks continue to contain radioactive isotopes. Q2. What would happen if pure radioisotope samples were generated? C2. There would be a gradually-increasing rate of decay. This would self-limit as the decay rate would make the sample less pure. The rate of accumulation of the isotope and the rate of its decay are factors that offset one another. If the rate of accumulation is nearly instantaneous, and the mass were large enough, there would be detonation. Otherwise, the sample would merely show an artificially-old age. Of course, as the purity goes down, assuming constant mass of the isotope, the rate of decay would decrease. However, if the sample were exposed to a second large radioactive sample of high purity, the original sample would show an artificially-old age.

Another similar question: Is it hard for a geologist to be a young earth creationist?

I used to think there was no natural explanation for ghosts sightings or haunted houses. Later I learned of natural explanations ...

the tree, please excuse me for any mispelled words, typos, or grammatical errors

My bad, I read "thread anything" rather than "thread a discussion about anything". I just wanted to know the names of other atheist physicists, but the dicussion of this thread could be "Is increased understanding or knowledge of science also increase your probability if being an atheist?" or "Does a certain interpretaion of biology or physics lead one to becoming an atheist?" or lead someone to the disbelief in a all loving all powerful diety.

or an answer to the question at least.

If I would have asked you "Are you a physicist?" then that would have been the correct answer.

Are you a theist?

First Name, Last name, experience, (random info) 1. Steven Weinberg, Nobel 2. Richard Feynman, Nobel 3. Georges Charpak, Nobel (Wrote "Debunked" with Henri Broch) 4. Lawrence M. Krauss, PhD (HP: http://www.phys.cwru.edu/~krauss/) 5. Costas Efthimiou, PhD (not sure if atheist) Anymore, anyone?

Geez, this is what happens when you don't sleep.

I don't think we should*

I don't think we can title the characteristic of two eye colors as a genetic defect unless it effects the ability of the human's ability to see. Maybe we can call it "rare genetics".

The use of the word "learning" in that sentence was gramatically incorrect right? ... UNLESS someone has experimented with green house gases and learned that they do not isolate thermoenergy. *** Sorry everyone.

I'm with bombus and bascule on this, UNLESS someone has experimented with green house gases learning that they do not isolate thermoenergy.

I became familiar* - fill in the blanks for anything else I missed *

I'm not decided over whether or not Global Warming is being influenced by human activity. The model that suggests this is pretty simple though: Green House Effect is what keeps this earth at a certain temperature (warmer) but an increase in the amount of substance in our atmosphere that causes this effect would would reduce the escape the amount thermoenergy that escapes. Forgive any inaccuracy of terms or data. I became with solar activity and climate change just a couple weeks ago after listening to Nigel Calder (science writer) and advocate of non-anthropogeothermo (no human relationship between global warming). I don't care much for what Nigel Calder has to say, but I'm interested in the climatologists that do or don't think Global warming is anthropocentric. Here are some links: Journalist Chris Mooney blogs about GW Chris Mooney is currently dealing with "Framing" but if you go back on some of his earlier posts you can the investigation he's done on Global Warming but as geoguy said, there is a lot of politics involved... Chris Mooney also discusses this aspect of Global Warming.