Phi for All

This sounds good to people, so good that it often makes them stop thinking any farther. What could be better than the truth (or Truth)? But truth is subjective. What's true for one person isn't universal to all. That's not the way reality works. Science is interested in where the evidence leads, that's all. When evidence stacks up to support an idea, and nothing falsifies it, and no other explanations have as much support, we accept that explanation as our current best, subject to change if other evidence is presented. In this way, science continually improves its understanding. Truth makes us think we've found the answer, and we stop looking.

Good for your friend for making that distinction. I suppose this is no different than any endeavor where someone hires experts but doesn't really listen to them unless they're saying what that someone wants to hear. Which psychic makes the most money, the one that tells you you're going to have a pretty run-of-the-mill week, or the one that tells you adventure is in store when you meet a beautiful stranger? Truth is cheap, padding costs extra.

Wow, $50 per 20 minutes. And I'll bet these consultants aren't stopping these men early on to correct basic flaws. It would be so easy to offer encouragement instead, pointing out corrections as you go, but keeping these guys on the line for more money. That's a dangerous combo for the crackpot, emotional surety + just a little more money. It's a con artist's dream. We know these guys can go on for pages when most of the responses are telling them it's a no-go idea. Imagine if they had someone telling them, "Hmm, you could really be on to something here, with a little patience and some digging!"

You're right, this is an important point. Trying to answer the question as is lends it relevance it shouldn't have. It leads you down a path that looks well-traveled and brightly lit, that dumps you out under the creepy troll bridge.

Since you specified human skin and heart, but just blood in general, the answer is blood. Blood as we know it developed long before anything you'd call a human existed. But that's the problem here, what you'd call a human. If you try to point and say "This is the first human!", then its parents aren't quite human yet. So didn't the first human's skin, blood, and heart all happen at once? This shows the absurdity of trying to pin evolution down when it comes to speciation. There's a smooth progression that makes it impossible to draw a line. Find a color wheel representing hundreds of thousands of shades in the spectrum, a wheel with no white lines between the colors. When you find one, try to point to where blue becomes violet, or yellow becomes orange. That's what it's like with evolution.

And you're all welcome to it. The smile is pretty good, though. It's here if you need it.

You definitely don't think of atheism the way I do. The first sentence of yours I quoted claims it can be quantified, and the second attempts to do so. I think of god(s) the same way I think of stamp collecting. I'm not against people collecting stamps, it's just not something I give any credence to. It's not part of my life because it offers me nothing I can't get elsewhere. If some enormous revelation about stamp collecting presented a rational reason why I should suddenly embrace it, I'd check it out, but until then, I just don't collect stamps. Spirituality, to me, is a focus on the connectedness of the various pieces of my life, including the lives of those I encounter. I can easily forget about everything except my own immediate concerns, and just walk through my days doing what I need to do. But when I slow down and take in the circumstances like weather or traffic and how it's affecting the moods around me, and focus more on other people while still keeping my own objectives in mind, I'm open to a whole new experience that gives a much more fulfilling, layered, interesting perspective on living in a human society. I have to admit to some weird, irrational behavior I'd lump under spirituality. I like seeing people smile, so I engineer little incidents that cause good feelings. For instance, when going to the supermarket, I park far out for the exercise, and I also watch for people unloading carts into their cars. I'm getting good at spotting those who're close to finishing, and timing my steps to reach their car as their cart is empty. I walk up, flash my own smile, and say "Your timing is perfect!" as I reach to take their cart back to the store for them. The mixture of pleasure, pride, gratitude, and friendliness I see on their faces is awesome. And it gives me a lasting sense of interconnectedness and hope.

Well now you're changing the conditions while still criticizing my choices. Now you're just talking about "a good human", instead of humans in general. In this case, yes, I would save a selfless member of Doctors Without Borders before a snarling, rabid wolf who eat babies (over Vegan protests). But consider this scenario. I know a man who regularly cheated on his wife the whole time they were married. After their two children were grown and out of the house, he left his wife for another woman, but they never divorced. The other woman eventually left him, and his wife took him back in, believing that her vows meant she shouldn't give up on him. He lost all their savings on stock market speculations. He now refuses to find work, and while he's too young for Social Security, he's pushing his wife to take it early, which means her fixed income for the rest of her life will be much lower than if she waited. She can't leave him because she feels loyalty to the marriage. It's like he's drowning, she's trying to help him, but he's pushing her under to save himself. She's now borrowing money from friends who really can't afford it, so it's like he's pulling those people underwater with him too. The man is a sociopath, a liar, and he is a detriment to anyone he comes into contact with. If he was the human in your save-a-human story, and my dog was the animal, you'd be asking me to save someone I know will cause more harm than good to people I know and love, over an animal who has given me and my family nothing but love and companionship. By choosing my dog, I could actually help more humans, humans who maybe deserve my help more than this man. It's more than just choosing humans over animals just because we're the same. Some humans have done nothing to deserve being treated as humans.

One of my first thoughts was of a jellyfish-like creature in the atmosphere, something that could out-compete plants and ground creatures for sunlight.

That glib toss-off tells me he meant what we're all afraid he meant. He's used that style of delivery for bombshells before. This shouldn't be protected under free speech. He might as well be running his finger across his throat after saying, "Well, there's one way to stop her".

There are people I know who don't care about other people at all. Should I love them more than my dog? I don't. I judge every creature by their actions. I love the ones who's actions make my life better.

! Moderator Note Off-topic hijack regarding sound waves and headphone volume split off into the Trash. The topic here is "heading into grade 10" and the "volume of a jar"! I'm blaming English for this one.

Do you think there would be any broad inherent differences in creatures adapted to hydrogen worlds, something that would preclude anything we'd recognize as life?

I think the Community Status Update is to let the membership know if there are major things happening to you that may affect your posting somehow. Like you're getting married, or changing jobs, or going on vacation. It's not really a discussion, and it's not your blog either. Using it to post ideas you don't want challenged is cowardly. And I can't imagine anyone who is abusing their CSU would appreciate a bunch of negative responses to something in their profile. We don't have any rules on this. It seems more like a breach of decorum, trying to be sneaky about supporting your most outlandish ideas.

Can we substitute "well-educated" for "attractive"? That way we don't have to wait for generational changes, we can solve more problems, and work with the population we already have. You just have to put up with some folks who don't fit your ideal of "attractive". To me, smart and rational is sexy as hell.

I think the primate connection is too close for some. To them, it seems somehow demeaning and absurd. I've had better luck reminding these people that everything with a backbone probably shares ancestry with a fish no bigger than your thumbnail. That seems to set a more level playing field, and hopefully encourages more interest in evolution.

! Moderator Note I'm posting your abstract here for all to see. Part of our rules state that members aren't required to leave this site to participate in discussions. Please be aware that this is NOT a conspiracy site. You will be required to support your ideas with science. Also, this isn't Science News, it's more of an extraordinary claim. I'm going to move this to Speculations. Please take a look at the special rules to follow in this section.

Is there a scale that can be used to measure efficiency at using and dissipating heat, such that an obvious division is evident between animate and inanimate objects? "The smell of burning latex told me the condom was unlikely to provide further protection..."

As you say, it's what I imagine death to be like, which can't be scary since I'd hardly be anguishing about it. It's comforting to me to imagine it that way. A universal cessation, waiting for the next time I need to "open my eyes" (if that ever happens - I won't be wondering when). The one that still unsettles me a bit to think about is the pre-op anesthesia they use when they need you semi-mobile and tractable. Just like the general, I remember nothing of it. I'm told I was quite witty and endearing (my strategy for surviving any medical visit - "be worth saving"), my timing was excellent, and doctors, nurses, and my wife were all smiling as they had me lie down on the table. And I remember nothing of it! Did I just "phone it in", sort of respond on auto-pilot, or was I fairly cognizant but lacking any kind of memory storage? It's like a blackout after drinking too much, there's just nothing there to retrieve. It really gives you the feeling someone else was using your body while you were away.

He's playing the "the election is rigged card" early enough that he's clearly thinking failure is a possibility. I just don't think he's going to get much traction about the debate schedule objections. His base REALLY wants to see him call Hillary a cunt on national television. They won't care if she makes better points, shows more leadership and understanding of the demands of the job, and they certainly won't care if she brings up every crazy thing he's said. They want blood in the water. But I think Trump knows his base won't win the election for him. I think he's worried about losing too many people if Hillary makes him look like an idiot. And I just don't see much hope for him debating Hillary Clinton on issues. There's too much he doesn't know and he's also unwilling to spend the time and effort to correct that. His knowledge of government is even more superficial than he is. Kneejerk reactions coupled with ignorance is a losing formula, and I think the debates will highlight this, if Hillary can keep her cool and not try to out-trump the Donald.

This is exactly what I thought of when I read about the Goliath paper ajb mentioned. I love this analysis! It's obviously an error in translation. They probably meant David's projectile broke the speed of sound. I'm pretty sure the Hebrew word for "sling" is very similar to the Hebrew word for "rail gun".

Are fashion designers clothes-minded?

The best comedy requires sacrifice. Mine just needs sympathy.

! Moderator Note Joshmoe, I've hidden several off-topic posts. Our #1 rule here is civility. If you can't take some ribbing about necromancy, please say nothing. That would be preferable to homophobic sniping, which always seems inappropriate. No need to respond to this note in thread, but you can Report it if you disagree. Can we get back to the topic, please?

Right, I know for a fact you're really silver screen legend Sean Bean (nobody's ever seen you both in the same room). I love your work, btw, and I'm sick of your characters getting killed off before all the good stuff happens.