Phi for All

I shall henceforth be known as L. Phi for Me Alone. Doubters will be shot.

! Moderator Note jamiestem, please remember that you are not being insulted. Your ideas are being critiqued, nothing more. This is a crucial step in the scientific method. If it were easy, it wouldn't be the most effective tool for understanding the physical world that has ever existed. As was mentioned before, it's not personal though it may feel that way.

I agree with this. Based on the reasons I gave earlier, I think women would think more "big picture", and make more long-term plans than men would. Like it's more tactical to put out a forest fire, but more strategic and better in the long run to let it burn. I'm already starting to hear this kind of talk after the devastating earthquake/tsunami in Japan. It could be of long-term benefit because a lot of those old facilities needed updating and now they'll be built state-of-the-art instead of just refurbishing the old.

I think it's because Hitler was such an evil genius who couldn't be stopped and ended up ruling the entire world.

It's doubtful that any animal, much less an insect, has the kind of neural complexity to need spiritual solace. How could you know such a thing? We're ALWAYS headed towards some new world order. I think the one thing we know is true is that religion can't be "sucked up by secular forces". The more you try to force it down, the more fervent the believers get. If there is a way to get rid of a religion, I think it would be to make it "unvaluable" somehow. I really don't understand what you mean by all this. I have never heard of Adam and Eve being thought of as gods. Some modern religions, like the church of the science of mind, preach that God is inside each person. Is that what you mean? Oh, and I don't think our new man-god should be ydoaPs. He art evil unto me and thee.

My opinion is that women, as the traditional gatherers, have a much larger strategic focus than men do, as the hunters. For the majority of our existence, men had the tactical responsibility of flushing game and then hunting it down, a more tactical role, while women had to keep on the lookout for a wider variety of things to gather. I don't think one gender is more rational than the other, it's just that their overall focus is different. War is often a strategic option so I don't think there would necessarily be fewer of them if women were in charge. I also think some modern wars are waged because of arms economics, but I'm not sure if women would see the need to use weapon production to grow the economy as a strategic advantage the way the current powers seem to.

I just don't see all these docile, uncreative people you're talking about. I think much of our problems stem from misconceptions between what we really need, what we really want and what we're really getting. How do you think we're being docile in this country? I also think you're being overly dramatic. Flouride has been proven to reduce tooth decay, not "keep your teeth from rotting away". Logically, I wonder why the concentration camps would need to put anything in the water when Learned Helplessness is a fairly pervasive psychological effect. Shooting people who create trouble before it's their turn to die is conditioning enough. Do you have any sources that are accredited? I see plenty of conspiracy sites but none that could cite such a source.

The only abstract I could find quickly seemed to run counter to your claim. While the sample is skewed because one is for military men and the other seems to be for men in general, I wouldn't say that an increase of 2" in 150 years is "not all that different", not in terms of evolutionary scale. Imo, there is too much ad hoc justification in this thread for it to be in Medical Science. Can we thicken the ice upon which we tread with a bit more rigor?

! Moderator Note A speculative post has been removed to keep this discussion within mainstream science. Speculations belong in their own sub-forum!

I think this stunted definition of "productive" requires people like your grandmother to die rather than recover "artificially" so they don't use any more resources than necessary. I'm just guessing that this is based on some sort of "natural" guidelines. Perhaps were seeing the advent of a "Budhist/Amish Scientist" sect that spurns modern medicine and technology. Quite right, Ophioloite. I'd be interested to know if it was the method or the results that are being spurned. Interesting. We do have many biases and inefficiencies with regards to consumption. I think we naturally move towards miniaturization and efficiency, but are too often led astray by promises of personal convenience. Convenience almost always costs someone, somewhere, more than it's really worth.

I was fairly certain this was just a soapbox argument and that your mind was already made up. I work with a Buddhist monk and he called your posts "unrealistic and extreme in their censure". Science provides a way for societies to maintain higher levels of population. You aren't really attacking science; I think your beef is with our civilization, which encourages growth and thus the use of more resources. Ultimately, we will reach a point where we'll need more than one planet has to offer. Since our sun will eventually kill the whole planet anyway, I think it's a good thing science is helping us leave. We'll wave to you and the lions when we go.

rktpro, can you understand now how great a photograph would be? If you don't have a digital camera, then please be extremely detailed in your description and answer ALL the questions asked of you if you want meaningful answers back.

Entropy can also describe a loss of information in a transmitted message, so I'm thinking entropy is THE ADVERSARY you really need to worry about.

Science discovered that keeping ourselves and our surroundings cleaner leads to healthier, longer, bubonic plague-free lives (with little more resources than water, soap and sweeping up dirt and food scraps to keep rats and their fleas away from our living quarters). Joseph Lister pioneered some early efforts in sanitizing surgical tools (and surgeon's hands) which allowed modern surgery to heal more than hurt. Water, soap, carbolic acid vs. the resources required to burn or bury millions of bodies. I'm more than half worried that this won't satisfy you, sxShadoWxs, since, even though sanitation and antiseptics help us live longer in order to think of ways to be "productive", your definition is so narrow that I suppose letting everyone die young and filthy would use fewer resources ultimately. Is this what you were after, an admission that science makes it possible for there to be more human life on the planet, and that's a bad thing because it wastes resources?

It seems like everyone who dies from a brain aneurysm was secretly assassinated by someone from the government. Brain aneurysms are "mysterious", so they must be nefarious as well.

! Moderator Note Thread moved to Computer Help. Suggestions is for site improvement only! It might help to know what you have to work with. What kind of computer do you have, what programs are on it already? And I also agree with your boss. A list helps him see that you understand what you're doing and also gives him some boundaries to work with. Be very clear about what you need and he may be more cooperative.

Many years ago, I saw Joseph Newman on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He claimed to have a motor that combined electromagnets and gyroscopes to make an EM field so big it could be used to feed electricity back into itself for not only perpetual motion, but extra free electricity besides. He was very persuasive and had everyone (except real physicists) fooled. No one but Joseph Newman could ever recreate one of his motors. That's the real test in science, predictions that can be reproduced by others.

So he was killed but his plans were left? Why would killing him stop production of a water fuel cell that worked? Believe me, many have tried to prove him right and they all failed, which is almost the same as being proved wrong. The only conspiracy theorists who still believe in this are people who never tried to duplicate the cells. They lack the knowledge to do so, but they remain convinced they are right. If the plans worked, don't you think someone would be making a lot of money with it, in spite of everything the oil companies could do? It's not like the plans require a fortune in start up capital.

Stan Meyer was found guilty of fraud. No one could ever duplicate what he claimed to be able to do, which should tell you something. There are no cheap methods of generating electricity. You could probably spend your time better buying a gasoline-powered generator and then figuring out how to make THAT more efficient.

Like most political manoeuvrings, this one has several goals, only one of which is "a great humanitarian effort". There is no pretense is that goal is achieved along with the others. Further, I think you've got your partisan blinders on. Your defense of the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq included the overthrow of Hussein for humanitarian purposes, iirc.

So... evil things happen to me, even if I'm good, because of... evil deeds I did in past lives... that I'm not even aware of, and can never know about?! Whose definition of "evil deeds" are we using? The Hindu version, the Christian version, the Budhist version? Does the religion matter or does it have to be one that believes in reincarnation? I have to tell you, I think the idea that we are paying for transgressions from a life we're not even aware we had sounds horrible. I mean, that's really a shockingly hideous thing to burden someone with. "Evil is going to fall on you no matter how good you are because you used to be bad in a previous life that you don't remember." Which religion is this from?

It would be more correct to say "God remains unobservable". This includes more senses than just the visual, and includes other ways of obtaining information. We don't have to get it only by visualizing it, therefore it's not a good example. There is a lot of evidence in favor of his existence, very little that might disprove it, and my theory that he existed is testable. Again, seeing something visually is different from scientific observation. If I think I have cockroaches in my kitchen but I never see any, I can test my theory by spreading flour near the baseboards. I still don't see the cockroaches but I can see where they have walked through the flour. This is a testable, repeatable observation (if I want to be truly rigorous, I would find some real cockroaches to make flour tracks and compare them to the ones in my kitchen). This makes God super (outside of the) natural. A lot of saints never knew bliss, many died screaming and none were recognized as saints while they lived. Completely wrong. Science studies what is natural, or in nature. God is supernatural, can't be observed in nature. Everything you attribute to God has naturalistic explanations.

! Moderator Note Advertisement-driven threads are not allowed on SFN, See Rules Section 2 Part 7, I removed the contact info in the OP, so feel free to discuss the ethical considerations of organ marketing. Do NOT discuss the actual personal commitment of anything illegal, per Rules Section 2 Part 3aii.

A comedian friend of mine has the answer!