Phi for All

I don't want to take this thread too off-topic but I have to point out that if a contract requires only one company fulfill a multitude of tasks it's usually because a single multi-functional infrastructure will save TONS of money. The architects of the KBR contract ignored the most important business driver behind using a no-bid, single entity solution. It was a proposal tailored to fit a company, not a company in a position to fulfill a proposal.

Hush, you'll confuse the baby! You want him to think he only has two toes?! It's hard enough to raise a vegetable without you complicating things!

Ooooh, you did it, you good boy! Who's daddy's little genius? You posted on an Internet forum! Yay! I told the doctors they were wrong about you! We'll try typing with the other hand after your nap. Say bye bye!

It's true, he's undefeated, but only in games like Find Your Foot and Rattle Tag. He pwns those. School will start soon and then I'm sure the rigors of kindergarten will tax psycho1's ten-year-old, um... brain.

Step back and ask yourself what literature is supposed to accomplish. If you are looking for enlightenment (aka education that results in understanding and the spread of knowledge) then it's possible for a well-written cereal box to be literature. It all depends on what works to turn on the lights for you.

No. Indignant is acceptable. You are both making *arguments*. Calling someone inept is an ad hominem fallacy and we try to call them out when we see them. Logical fallacies can often keep us from learning so we don't allow them to stand unchallenged. It could be that, for you, it is. However, I truly hope you will realize that your ego is not that fragile, shake it off and come back.

Since belief in a literal six-day creation contradicts geological and evolutionary evidence it MUST be a metaphor (or a misinterpretation of yom). Very little else about creationism completely contradicts science. It's not really about anyone's personal beliefs, it's about falsely assigning characteristics to a supposedly historical event based on a system of beliefs that denies characteristics typically used with historical events. The option to view the six-day creation metaphorically removes the stumbling block between creationism and science. The rest can be ignored by both sides. God can still be omnipotent so the faithful are happy and science can still ask for evidence while remaining skeptical until they get it.

Don't be silly; *we* always see Earth with North America on top. Another common element is where ships that meet in space are always aligned with each other. You never see one of them come in at a different angle to the other. It's hard to cancel gravity from our perceptions.

LOL, that's the first thing I thought of when I read that, especially since it was capitalized. You know it's against the rules to have multiple accounts!

Thank you for not responding to the personal attack. Your restraint is admirable and noted. But aren't they all creationist places? I will send a PM to one of our members who was raised in Israel and now lives in NY. She speaks and reads Hebrew and would be a good source for this discussion (I hope it's not off-topic; I consider it to be at the root of creationist claims). I can appreciate that but the Essenes at the time influenced much of Hebrew writings and were skilled in metaphor. This may just be one of those impasses that crop up when discussing religion from a scholarly viewpoint. Why did God create the heavens and earth in six days but make it look billions of years old? To strengthen the faith of those who know the truth. How... circular.

Due to the speculative nature of this thread it has been moved out of Classical Physics and into Pseudoscience & Speculation. As is always the case, upon further information and discussion it may return to the regular science sections but until that time it will remain here.

Currently we don't discuss religion much. We may be reinstating a Philosophy & Religion subforum but even if we do, its aim will not be to argue whether or not God exists or any one religion is right or wrong or even why being an atheist is so much better. Been there, done that, washed the T-shirt so many times it doesn't fit any more. If we bring P&R back it will be with the caveat that we're not interested in trying to use science & logic to disprove religion and we don't want anyone preaching that their religion is the best. Science and religion can be discussed together but they can't be used to defeat one another. One is all about observed phenomena, the other is about faith in the unobservable. If you've already made up your mind one way or another then your lack of skepticism may rule you out as a candidate for religious discussions.

And to back this up you use a creationist website?! Really bad form. Try using something written by a Hebrew scholar, or even the TalkOrigins site you cited to theCPE. Hebrew only had about 3000 words at the time Genesis was written. Many words had multiple meanings. I've only seen one reference (the creationist site you mentioned) that claimed a fixed meaning for the word yom when used with numbers. I'll look into it a bit more but I tend to favor TalkOrigins as a source in these matters.

I truly wish someone in the entertainment marketing industry would grow a pair and start the "no previews, no spoilers" campaign. Do they truly believe I won't read the next Harry Potter book or watch the next X-Men movie if they don't tell me / show me all the best bits? I get so sick of previews that give away everything of importance. All my best experiences with movies and books lately have been complete surprises, nothing or very little known beforehand. Don't you think it would be tremendously effective to see a commercial or read a review that simply says, "Folks, you are just not going to believe how exciting this. We aren't going to taint this experience for you with trailers and spoilers. You'll just have to come and see"?

Skepticism *is* healthy and science certainly isn't a fragile, sacred belief that can't withstand scrutiny and criticism. Creationists are not skeptics. They insist on very narrow, literal translations of works penned thousands of years ago. And they prefer the explanation that God simply willed everything into being in a way that makes it appear billions of years old instead of just 6000 years old. Scientific skepticism could allow for a higher power behind evolution. Doesn't it make more sense that an omnipotent God would be a patient one as well? Creationists insist on throwing out evolutionary theory because they think it threatens God as a creator. Evolution has nothing to say about how we were created, only how things change over time. That's why it seems like a mental disorder. No matter how many times you tell a creationist that evolution has nothing to do with creation they insist that it threatens their God. It always creeps back into their arguments. You mean except for the parts where evolution is wrong and that God willed the heavens and earth into being in six 24-hour days but planted evidence that discredits that? If they simply added divinity into it I'd have no problems. I actually think it would be much more awesome for God to set everything in motion and then sit back and wait 5 billion years for Its work to produce results. I agree that creationism isn't a mental disorder, but I do think creationists are being deluded by their churches into thinking science is trying to cancel out religion. When science points to *some* creationists claims as being at odds with supported evidence, the creationists delude themselves that *all* their claims are being attacked. There are many religions, even Christian ones, that recognize this as fallacious logic. The Catholic church leaps to mind.

What's up with this? You just joined, give it time. In case you were wondering, posts in General Discussion (where all your posts are so far) don't show up in your post count. Post in the sciencey sub-forums if you want that post count to rise above zero. Everyone here has a POV that is important. Including you. Sorry the technology has been annoying.

The two main points that define creationism (at least from where I stand) are the insistence that an all-powerful God MUST have willed everything into existence and simply made it *appear* to be billions of years old, and the insistence that only one of three possible interpretations of the Hebrew word yom be used when translating Genesis. For the former, creationists have no problem believing that their God would resort to trickery and deceit to fool scientists of a later age. They delude themselves into thinking (or have been told so repeatedly by their church) that scientific evidence of evolution means there is no God or that He is not all-powerful if the theory is true. For the latter, I've actually had a discussion with Christian creationists who asked me point-blank, "What don't you understand about the word 'day', it's pretty clear what a 'day' is, isn't it?" When I pointed out that Genesis was written originally in Hebrew where the word yom can also mean "an indeterminate amount of time" I could see that they had deluded themselves into forgetting all about the Hebrew influence in the Bible. Just as many Christians picture the Last Supper the way Da Vinci painted it, at a European table with European tableware, I think much of creationism seeks to strip an undesirable ethnicity from their religion. Is this delusion or racism? In both cases I think much of the delusion is perpetuated by withholding many of the strongest arguments and misrepresenting many of the rest. Can creationism be called delusion when it seems somewhat cleverly and insistently perpetuated by a third party, in this case the creationist churches?

But wasn't a canary used because the elephant wouldn't fit in the portable cage? Also, I believe canaries were used to detect CO and methane, which held other dangers for the miners than CO2 poisoning. I think the mouse would survive longer. It's respiration rate is 33 times what the elephant's is (~163/minute as opposed to ~5/minute) but the elephant is 15,000 times bigger, breathing in a much greater share of the CO2 that will kill it before oxygen deprivation will.

Part of the frustration you're feeling could be a a lack of aim, such that when something depressing happens you temporarily have nothing to point to in the near future to alleviate your stress and find a more uplifting mood. Have you set any long-term goals to work towards? If you haven't, try this. Start with thinking about where you want to be the day before you die (wait, this isn't the uplifting part). Assume that you will be absolutely fine one day and dead the next, with no lingering illnesses, happy to have lived your life. Where do you want to be, who do you want to be with, every detail you care to think of. Write all this down. Now work backwards to where you will need to be 10 years from now in order to make the day before you die a reality. Again outline what you will need to achieve this. Do the same thing for 3 years from now, 1 year from now, 1 month from now, 1 week from now and end with what you're going to do tomorrow to start all of this in motion. This is your Road Map to Snail's Ultimate Life. Revisit this road map often to make sure you're still on target. It's OK to change a few things along the way but the farther out you change things the better your reasons must be. Everything you do will have purpose and I think you'll find these bouts of apathy will lessen with time. The opposite of apathy is focus, determination and confidence in your daily choices. It's really easy to "go with the flow" and while it's important to be flexible with what Life throws at you, having goals to work towards lets you give yourself permission to have fun and work hard to attain what you want.

Science & Technology: Shattering comfortable ignorance.

Welcome to SFN, Elessarina. Many of our members study science right here, from the comfort of their own homes. We can't give you a degree but we don't charge anything either. Acquaint yourself well with the Search function and you can look up past discussions about most areas of science. If you find a topic that hasn't been discussed (or at least not recently) feel free to start a thread about it. Enjoy! I'm telling your fiance that you're talking to local girls about what will be held against them! Watch yourself, marriage-boy!

Too... many... jokes. Must... fight... the... urge. Actually, I'd like to see more cross-pollination of skills. This is happening a lot in business these days, with communications executives joining architectural firms, or IT managers being brought into markets which didn't use them five years ago. Tired policies and outmoded processes become revitalized with the new POV and new ways of doing the same old are bridging the gap between what used to be and what can be. We've talked before about a scientist running for office. Wouldn't it be great to have an analytical mind in Washington who could *use* all the studies we've funded rather than covering them up? Someone who believes knowledge is more important than the profits of campaign contributors?

In that case, Elessarina, meet swansont. swansont, meet Elessarina. Elessarina loves physics, swansont is a physicist (and a male stripper), so the two of you can just get... physical. Btw, you owe us a joke, Elessarina. That's the way this thread works.

Congratulations, ajb! Here's a little something from the Staff: Health, happiness and prosperity to you and your bride! And remember that, just like SFN, marriage will increase your capacity for learning curves!

As this deals with a bit of mysticism I have moved this thread to Speculations. Should the hypothesis prove a bit more mainstream than my cursory glance suggested, it will be moved back to one of the science subforums.