Phi for All

LOL. Make it like what? The only assumption I made was that you put the pieces together to complete the puzzle. It isn't really a jigsaw puzzle if you don't (unless you're moving the goalposts again). The order isn't important. I don't even care if you put it together face down. When you see a piece that has a straight edge, you aren't going to even try to put it in the middle. You're going to assume it belongs on the outside edge because that's what you suppose will be the case, even though there isn't any proof that it will be. And you test that assumption as you analyze and hypothesize about where those edge pieces will fit because you will be looking for a match along the outermost edge, not the middle. There's nothing unscientific about those kinds of assumptions, as long as you're testing them to make sure reality-based evidence continues to support them.

People who are happy with a product aren't as likely to praise it publicly as those who are unhappy with it will complain about it. For every person who complains publicly there are tens of thousands of people who experience no problems, generally. Please understand that comments about why you're questioning established products IN NO WAY mean we're questioning why you want to learn to read labeled ingredients. You're being smart about that part. The questions are because you seem to be putting a lot of significance on a few vocal complaints and ignoring the fact that these products are still being purchased by a large enough customer base to keep these companies profitable. Market economics suggests these products are not dangerous to a very large amount of those who use them.

You make the assumption that the pieces with a straight side go on the outside. You also further assume (in a landscape puzzle, at least) that the sky-colored pieces with a straight side go on the top edge. The four pieces with right angles on them are assumed to be the corners. This isn't analysis, it's assumption based on previous knowledge.

False Dilemma. You do both. Communicating your ideas is part of the process. Why do you want to propose your ideas if not to communicate with others about them? Review of your work by others is probably the best part of the methodology. No matter how much you think you know, you can't begin to touch the sum of knowledge possessed by everyone else who would read your work.

One of the Mous quadruplets, brother to Blasph E, Ven E and Magnan I.

Meteors compress the air in front of them and that generates a great deal of heat. I forget what they call it, but this can cause them to burst before they hit the ground.

Step One - Grow wings out of your back.

The FDA only requires testing if you're making a medical claim or trying to use an ingredient that hasn't already been tested as safe. This is a cunning piece of marketing mendacity, because soaps using known ingredients don't have to go through the approval process, yet they make it sound like the manufacturers are deliberately putting harmful ingredients into their products and the FDA is ignoring it. In reality, if a manufacturer made any money from a product that hurt people, they'd lose it and more in the lawsuits that would follow. Longer shelf life or cheaper ingredients won't help you if no one will buy your product because it's harmful.

Drownings, floods, burst pipes....

"Harmful" needs to be defined. And some people are more sensitive to certain ingredients than others. I know they used to use Dimethicone to fill silicone breast implants but the industry switched to saline for safety reasons. Dimethicone is an approved ingredient in many products used on skin. I wouldn't think a skin care company would last long using ingredients that were dangerous to a significant portion of their customers. Are you experiencing any adverse effects from this skin care product?

Recipe for misunderstanding: imatfaal going back to all the places he visited yesterday, asking, "Have you seen my penis?"

We're certainly not the only creatures who've caused the extinction of other species, but we're the only ones I know of who actively work to preserve other species as well. Would any other species hesitate to kill and eat its favorite prey if it knew the prey was one of the last few of its kind? I think part of our problem is not thinking of ourselves as part of nature, that human civilization is evil because it can negatively impact other species. We are part of nature, so whatever we do we is natural even if it's not the smartest thing to do in the long run. If there is anything we can do better than any other species, it's thinking in long-range terms, and we just don't do enough of that lately. If we can start exercising that part of our intellect more, then I would definitely say this world is better off having us here.

+1 for ajb (which we now know stands for amputating john bobbitt). I'm glad human men can't detach their penis. My wife would insist I leave mine at home on guy's night out.

This would be a great opportunity to shamelessly plug for my friends at Secure World Foundation, who are working hard to set up just such international guidelines. For now, their work is focused on satellites and orbital debris but hopefully their efforts could be the framework for future mining efforts.

There are about 10% of Australians who feel as you do, however, an 11-year study by the University of Western Sydney's school of social science shows that 9 out of 10 people in Oz believe racial prejudice exists there. I think you're showing your own cultural bias by targeting the US in this thread. It's obviously a problem with a much larger scope.

Never trust for-profit television shows masquerading as news. They first decide what will keep you from changing the channel and THEN write the story to match. That's not to say racial bias doesn't exist. I just don't trust any study these people have done to write their piece. I suppose Australians have no racial bias at all, right Mr Rayon?

Personally, I think FAITH is different than other types of belief. The most I can do about things I either have no control over or evidence to support is to HOPE. For people or explanations I know very well and have confidence in, I call that belief TRUST. To me, FAITH is the weakest. least reliable form belief, masquerading as the strongest.

I need to look into that detail, obviously. Whales are an amazing evolutionary story. I remember reading where a creationist museum famously removed the hipbones from a whale skeleton they had so they could avoid uncomfortable, obviously narrow-minded questions from rational customers.

Actually, there is evidence that all vertebrates started as very small fish (Haikouichthys is one name I remember). Whales have hipbones so it's thought that they must have been amphibian for a time, walking on land with legs. They developed into mammals at some point but I'm not sure if that was before or after they moved back to the oceans.

For a buck, I'd hoped you would answer my questions.

Thanks for not using the misleading micro/macro evolution labels many creationists use. It's sincerely appreciated. If you understand and trust that natural selection drives small changes within a population over generations, why is it so far fetched to trust that those changes, along with climate and other environmental drivers, can't allow for large changes and even speciation over incredibly vast amounts of time? How can "man-written evolution", which has been investigated every day by thousands of people for the last 150 years, have a more "narrow-minded view" than the one you're displaying through your appeals to ridicule, or that of anyone who assumes everything we don't yet understand is the work of an unobservable creator?

How do you define faith? Is it just believing, or hoping, or is it something else? When I've asked people who consider themselves devout [insert applicable sect here], they always tell me about total conviction, unquestioning confidence, unwavering acceptance. These same people often distrust science when huge bodies of evidence drawn from reality supports its explanations. Instead, they prefer absolute acceptance of magic and mysticism over trust in what actually exists in front of them. I think it's clear that the value of faith is in the gullibility of those who profess its superiority.

Brighter and better doesn't have to mean inefficient or wasteful. Getting by on a lot less doesn't have to mean barely getting by. We can design more efficient ways to stretch what we have here on Earth, we just choose not to until we're forced to. How is it a false dilemma? If people assume that mining space is going to alleviate the immediate need to conserve our resources, isn't it probable that we'll just go on using less efficient processes to our detriment? Certainly there will come a time when the bounty of our system can be brought back to Earth but for the time being I think it would make more sense to assume that offworld resources will be better used offworld. Of course. This has been my argument all along. Right now we need to look at mining asteroids as a more efficient way to continue our work in space, not to resupply our own planet. Eventually, I'm sure that will change as our children's children's children discover ways to make it feasible to bring the plunder all the way home. I hope we leave them something to work with.

I don't know why there's so much objection to using space-mined ores for space-based operations. Are we still pirates that have to bring the plunder home? Or is it like the AGW issue where we don't want to be the problem so we can continue doing what we've been doing? It's dangerous to think we can supply ourselves from an unlimited system goldmine. We've got to stop thinking we don't need to be more frugal with our resources. For the time being, I think we need to consider planetary resources are the only ones we're likely to have for use on this planet. Space mining should be used to build more opportunities for space exploration.

Unless you're repairing your equipment offworld, or have the self-replicating machines you mentioned, it's too expensive to bring it back down, repair it and send it back out. I wonder if even self-replicating machines could reproduce hardened drill bits cost-effectively on their own. It would seem like at least part of the machines would be better off being manufactured in an offworld facility.