Phi for All

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.

You should then also remind your son not to sell illegal arms to Iran, funnel money to what would become the Taliban and Al Qaeda, or support Apartheid. Just sayin'. Accountability is another concept that makes no sense with so many religions. We can NEVER know the extent to which our acts, even the kind ones, affect others. Giving money to someone may seem charitable but might keep them from finding their dream job. Helping one person might mean that someone more deserving suffers. Braking to avoid hitting a dog might cause someone further back in traffic to swerve and hit someone else head-on, killing them all. And conversely, doing something unkind could end up being the greatest benefit that person ever knew. How can we be held accountable for all the myriad variables in our lives and those affected by us?

I like the wager. The Christian heaven would have to have a lot of people who were total scum in life but repented on their death beds as they accepted Jesus. How is that better than having people who spent their lives making this world better for those who live in it but didn't place utter, unquestioning faith in a god who wanted them to focus on personal redemption?

We've renamed, we've changed the rules, we've repositioned, we've made procedural changes, and all of it based on critiques we've received from the membership. What we've learned from all this is that every change only mollifies a particular group of speculators for a short time, and then a new group arrives with fresh criticisms that are counter to what the last group found objectionable. At a certain point, it becomes obvious that it's not the process that's flawed, but rather that most speculators don't like to be corrected at all. This is usually supported by the assertions that are made ("This theory is so simple it MUST be true"). Making conclusions before you've explained your idea is not a good way to present them to people familiar with reasoned argument. I'm not sure that a more "flexible" speculative approach would be good for anyone. It sounds like it would simply be used to leap over some early fundamental errors and try to draw conclusions based on shaky ground. How does that honestly help anyone? Pages of discussion wasted because we wanted to be more flexible and allow early mistakes to go unchallenged. Who are we trying to please with that scenario?

Do your launch and re-entry costs include the actual costs of mining the asteroid to collect the platinum? Even without those costs, my earthly competition is making a great deal more profit, so why am I risking so much to bring it back to Earth? Check out this blog post. I'm not sure I completely agree with some of this guy's assumptions, but I think he's taking more into consideration than either of us is. I still say the best use of metals we find in space is build more ways to explore space, rather than try to bring it back down. We'll need it out there, so why not use it out there?

Your post was hijacking someone else's thread, which I explained quite clearly in my modnote. We try to discuss one topic at a time. Your speculative ideas should be in their own thread. Ordinarily, the staff hides posts like that (we never delete anything). However, after a conversation with michel123456, it was suggested that putting hijacking threads in the Trash Can offered a bit more transparency for the process, so this was the first time I've done this. Apparently, do AND don't = damned. I'm not putting it back in the other thread. I think it's been made the OP of its own thread in Speculations.

! Moderator Note Non-mainstream concept, moved to Speculations.

! Moderator Note An attempt to hijack this thread with another speculative hypothesis has been removed to the Trash Can (in the interests of transparency). Efforts to help one non-mainstream idea with another non-mainstream idea may seem helpful to the one posting it, but it only serves to make a discussion about the original more difficult and confusing. Please consider how difficult it is to provide evidence for speculations and have respect for your fellow members. Hijacking is against the rules you agreed to when you joined. Keep your speculative ideas in your own threads, If you have a problem with this modnote, please use the Report Post function. Do NOT further derail this thread by discussing it here.

You must leave now.

TODAY it's working for me that way. It wasn't on Wednesday, and I can't trust that it will tomorrow.

I'm finding this doesn't work consistently. edit: crossposted with swansont, so I'll add that I sometimes use the editor to separate the sentences I want to quote, then go back to the normal mode so I can more easily highlight and wrap quote tags around them. Then I can also deal with the spacing. I don't like having responses crammed between the lines. I think it's easier to read with a space above and below, even though this may not seem an efficient use of space.

AFAIK, every pack of birth control pills has three weeks worth of hormone pills and a week's worth of placebos. The sugar pills are to be taken after ovulation has been prevented, when the extra hormones would be unnecessary. Taking the placebos keeps you in the habit of taking the pills every day.

In looking for a technological way for individual humans to fly, no engineer is going to waste time on a design that mimics a bird flapping its wings. It's too inefficient with regard to weight vs the power needed to achieve and maintain flight. Even if the design didn't require taking off from the ground (which is very difficult even for some of the bigger natural avians), there are many other paths to sustainable flight using fixed wings. Flapping is hideously expensive in terms of propelling something as heavy as a human. Please start another thread on this. Let's keep this one focused so we don't confuse those who join us later on.

Hmmm, that's a tough one. Genetics jokes and stories are out there, but I don't know of any books (if your next post claims to have found one I'll know you're spamming for its author and we will boot you - and NOT royally). If I were you, I'd buy two pairs of denim pants, cut a leg off one pair and sew it onto the crotch of the other pair and tell him they're mutant jeans.

God loves gaps, especially paragraph breaks.

I, along with many of our other members, would greatly appreciate it if you would .

Most of that article is aimed at internal effects and the length of estrogen exposure. Does breast tissue density have an impact on how a woman looks? AFAIK, density is determined by a mammogram but has no external indicators. I was wondering what made you say, "it seems the later the menopause starts the younger&healthier the women look like". Is this anecdotal or do you have anything else to support it?

Please see my study on the effects of toluene exposure on London rodents.

Menopause has its own problems. Weight gain during menopause may be more affected by psychological factors than by physiological ones. Women athletes have it particularly rough because estrogen can also make certain ligaments looser, resulting in more injuries. I've never read anything about how the onset age of either puberty or menopause affects a woman's looks. Do you have a link to any studies or articles about the benefits of later menopause or menstruation?

Allright, let's go with that. But I reserve the right to reopen the case if and when new information is made available.