Phi for All

I agree that the attempts to procure illicit favors and exemptions is inevitable; the nature of business is built on seizing opportunities in any way they can get away with. It's the "get away with" process I'd name as one of our biggest problems. It's not a purely Republican Party-caused situation. There are conservative Democrats also guilty of greasing the skids on the way down for many, while accepting favors and funding from the few who can afford to pillage legally. We need to close the loopholes and the engineered thuggery that allow our processes to be compromised. I agree that this is a problem of our government, and not the mega-corps. But if we don't take a hard look at what the mega-corps are doing, and getting away with, our government can't shore up it's regulations and bring these bandits, who seem to have little allegiance to the country that gives them charter to do business in the first place, to heel. This seems to be a separate problem we have. One administration does something they feel is positive (Jimmy Carter and the White House solar project), and another administration tears it down (Ronald Reagan ripping out Carter's working solar panels for no reason). In many cases, acts likes this are completely politically motivated, which translates to mega-corporation motivated. FEMA, same thing. During Republican administrations, programs like these get dumped to the side, underfunded and headed by a lame appointee who's owed favors. And so the program underperforms, and they point to how ineffective it is. Under administrations that care about the programs, they flourish and perform brilliantly, just like they were designed to. Just like they were designed to. It would be in the country's best interest, imo, to enact some safeguards for such programs, so their funding can't be tampered with, can't be manipulated into crippling stagnation, can't be used to make special favors happen for special companies. If we ever got single-payer universal healthcare (Medicare!), or open education in human knowledge through community college, I'd like to see some language in the bills that keeps any future administrations from bleeding them to make them look sick, or hogtie its officials to reduce their capabilities and make them look bad. We'd need to make sure we can dismantle them or fix them when circumstances warrant, of course, but I'd like to see some discussion about ways to prevent what happens when a conservative administration starts undoing all the social work a previous administration enacted. Perhaps this could be avoided by simply changing from a winner-takes-all voting system.

Science is NOT a religion. It bears absolutely no resemblance. The methodology used would prohibit any scientist from taking an explanation purely on faith. This is a crude caricature of science you're portraying, and it has no basis in reality. I don't know why you say we can't dismiss any religious point. If it has no evidential support, or it doesn't agree with reality, it deserves to be dismissed. I agree with Moontanman, I think you should stop looking for inspiration in mind altering substances. Others will find evidence that refutes your idea, and you should first concentrate on evidence that supports it. For instance, what mechanism causes the moon to affect gender in evolving creatures? How is that accomplished?

Do you have a link to a copy of this? When I search for it, lots of sites mentions it, but all links lead to nowhere, and CONSAD.com is "Not Available". What happened to this research company?

That's why it seems rather pointless to guess about it. We can't trust it if it happened prior to the time we do understand, where the physics can be determined.

To me, it's still speculation about what happened before the Big Bang, and is therefore just educated guesswork. It seems more like an explanation of how the matter from the entire universe got compressed down to particle size.

Very good to know, thanks. It's been a while since I checked on the price difference between SSD and HDD.

What does string/M theory have to do with your idea? Also, if you're going to string words together like this, you're going to have to explain your definitions. Spectrum of reality?! But fortunately not for science, which is made up of hundreds of thousands of mortal humans collaborating on observations of reality. The Theory of Evolution is one of our most understood concepts. Evolution is a fact, and the theory accurately describes it's mechanisms to the best of our current abilities. This is the part you need to support. What evidence do you have that supports this statement? What steps led you to this idea?

He also causes me whiplash from shaking my head so much.

I've done a lot of business in Westminster, CO. Fifteen minutes from me. And no way does it deserve a preferential query over a district in London. Our Westminster doesn't even have their own palace (The Royale Palace is actually an events center for quinceanera parties, sorry). Shame on Wolfram. We're awesome, but Earth shouldn't default to America.

! Moderator Note OK, this is definitely NOT mainstream science, so it can't stay in Evolution. We get students who expect to see answers they can use in school. So we'll move to Speculations. You're making assertions about this, saying "it is this way", rather than asking questions. This requires you to provide supportive evidence for those assertions (Panspermia is real, the moon delineates gender, moon = sperm/Earth = eggs, etc). In science, it's all about the preponderance of evidence. So please remember this when replies ask you to back up what you're claiming. Do you have anything that would qualify as supportive evidence for your idea? Good luck, and I hope the discussion is fruitful.

I was convinced he was being paid by the GOP to take the temperature of America, see what the hot buttons are, and be as outrageous about it as possible. I never thought he'd be taken this seriously as a candidate, mostly because of his denigration of women, and the fact that he LIES so much, and BIG LIES too. I couldn't imagine even Republicans supporting him after a debate with Sanders or Clinton pointed out all the LIES. Now, I don't know. He claims the USA is #1 on education per pupil by a factor of 4, and while intellectuals look this up and realize he's LYING, conservatives nod their heads and don't check. He gets to LIE and say he opposed the Iraq war, when anyone (except conservatives) can check to see he was as rabid as anyone else in the Republican Party to go to war. I think he appeals to some because he supposedly understands bidness. These folks say we need to get a bidnessman in there, that's what we need! Bush II was a bidnessman, and did some very proctologically unsound things to this country, but I guess that was so long ago, they've forgotten. Bush II lied his ass off too. Whoppers like Trump, not little white lies or exaggerations or stretching the truth. To tell the truth, I can't imagine Trump as an American President. I really think I'd have to move, for health reasons. Trump makes me sick.

Oh, come on! Why waste your time and mine with trivially false statements? This isn't talking face-to-face, you get more time to think before you say something like this here. You should use that time.

While I think healthcare and education are among our biggest problems, and I think we've shown the Republican Party is making those problems almost intolerable while pretending their monkey wrench platform helps the country (which is sort of two problems joined at the hip, they make a mess and then don't help with cleanup), I think the source of those problems is the lax regulations that allow big business to manipulate outcomes involving taxpayer dollars unfairly. It should also be intolerable to us that corporations get to help write legislation that legalizes banditry, monopolization, and bribery. We can point to the GOP as a big culprit in all this, but the system is allowing them to do this legally, and the megacorps are manipulating that system. The GOP is being financed by bigger interests, and I think we need to take aim at some of those as a contender for biggest problems. I find it more than a bit weird when a GOP supporter hardly bats an eye when unfair corporate influence is mentioned. That seems to be an acceptable crime to them, and it seems ruthless business and ruthless businessmen, a la Trump, are actually admired for their ability to screw the competition AND the consumers and bring in a profit by any means.

It sure has made the rounds of popsci writing and movies, though. So many references to artistic vs mathematical abilities, and how they're somehow NOT connected in the brain. It's like that meme about us only using 10% of our brains. It's one of those bits of misinformation that sounds SO plausible and erudite that even when you correct someone about it, you find that ten minutes later they're repeating the same garbage to someone else.

It's part of the Republican "small government that keeps its nose out of your personal business" platform. And if history tells us anything, you can bet someone who had a hand in writing this bill is having anal sex right now.

Citation, please? This sounds like one of a number of talking points that seems to make sense, but is not reflective of reality. I pay for my healthcare with insurance, but I sure wouldn't go all the time even if I had no co-pay. If it were free, I'd be more encouraged to go in for preventative care, and that's actually better for the system. "Every man/woman and their dog" is hyperbole, and trivially false.

Cheap gas in the US is one of those bittersweet US problems, where it's nice on the wallet but you know it's keeping us dependent on technology that's bad for breathing and drinking and eating creatures. Has anyone produced figures on what Americans would pay for gas at the pump if we didn't subsidize it? If we did the true free market thang and let them fail or succeed on their own, how much more expensive would petrol be? Would it be expensive enough to make alternative fuels look attractive? When gas hit $5/gallon during the end of the Bush II admin, it sure sparked a lot of interest in solar, wind, and electric cars.

All theory might be wrong, that's one of the things that makes them so useful. We know they're not complete, they can't ever be since we can't test for all environments. But knowing they can always be improved and built upon keeps us searching for better explanations. And keep in mind that most theories like BBT or Evolution won't be wrong in big ways. We know too much about these, they've been studied so much that any changes aren't likely to overthrow the basic theory. Also, don't make the mistake of thinking that because we don't know everything about the brain, it means we know nothing. I don't agree with your statement here. We know a TON about our brains, and the fact that you can say "we don't know much" just means that YOU don't know much about it. Fortunately, ignorance is curable (I try to cure a little bit of my ignorance every day). Btw, the whole left-brain right-brain dominance hypothesis has been debunked by research. So you're right about that, and wrong that it's a flawed part of any mainstream theory. You're demonizing science unfairly.

! Moderator Note Welcome to the site! I'm sorry, but if we're going to discuss this, we can't do it about specific sites (because that is just like advertising for them). The OP question should be about these blog mills in general, and whether it's ethical for a student to pay for his papers to be written for him. Please carry on, and thanks for understanding. No need to respond to this note, but you can Report it if you disagree.

More hyphens. And prophet prestige. Very important that you remember who predicted the world ending-but-not. This all sounds like emotional guesswork. I see so many claims of Truth and Proof, and no evidence to support them. Why do people think science looks for those things? Science isn't a religion, it needs reliable, trustworthy foundations, based in reality, not guesswork pumped up by emotional certainty.

This is a good metric for just about anything. If it's something you use daily, spend a bit more and get something that will make you smile rather than frown. Whether it's shoes that feel great, or a bed that lets you sleep best, or a laptop that will become an umbilical to an organized, informed, hi-tech lifestyle, if you look at the things that will give you the most benefit, that's where you can always afford to spend a bit extra. And it helps to really analyze how you'll be using the laptop. Do you really need a lit keyboard? It would be really nice, but for the most part I have no trouble seeing specific keys. Do you move the machine around a lot? I'd go solid state drive if you do, but it's going to cost. If you really most often use the machine in just a few places, and never move it while it's on, you can get away with a regular hard drive and save money. Are you mostly hooked up to power when you use the laptop? Then you don't need a battery upgrade, but if you're forced to be without power on a regular basis (traveling maybe), then a more powerful battery is worth every cent.

That was a warp. This is a wash. The space-time wash. (cue music) Ah, the Inevitability of Our Demise argument. It's because we're so bad and stuff, right?

He hangs out by the Vogon laundromat.

I've always wanted to know this. What do these groups do afterwards, when their big prediction fails? Do they still meet? Do they fade into the woodwork? Do they move onto another date? Do they suddenly realize they put a lot of faith in nothing at all and change their ways? I'd love to see someone document this. "Life After the Mayan Calendar Says You're Dead". Because of the way confirmation bias works, I suspect they never really give up the belief, but instead figure out another way to make it work. "We didn't calculate for quantum effects! Eddies in the space-time continuum!"

That's what they do. And then they act injured when we remark on how eroded things have become because of their actions and policies. They piss all over good programs, and then claim the fault should be evenly spread, presumably because we all pee. And they think that makes sense.