Phi for All

I would imagine it was difficult to devise a warning sign that wouldn't make people too fearful of atomic energy in general. I'm sure the tri-foil was meant to eventually become the accepted symbol, rather than being an instantly more intuitive warning like most others. Showing a person vomiting, bleeding and losing their hair while being assaulted by invisible waves might be more of a barrier than a warning.

I was complimenting your choice of people whose posts you preferred, since you included me. The reference to Pentcho was to Pentcho Valev, the latest member who felt Relativity was wrong because he couldn't understand it. He had to be banned because he loved to post canned refutations (which he has posted all oveer the Internet) and then not answer anyone who questioned him. I'm sure you will NOT be another Pentcho.

Wiki antagonists are usually put off because ANYONE can edit the entries, and may put in false info. But just because they can doesn't mean they do, and I for one find Wikipedia an invaluable resource. Watch for bias the way you would anywhere, but with Wikipedia, HowStuffWorks.com and SFN I could rule the world. If AzurePhoenix lets me, of course.

And may I say you have impeccable taste. After the recent rash of Pentchos we've had lately you are a refreshing change. The rest of you ungrateful lot could learn a thing or three from cchea here.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=pubmed&cmd=retrieve&list_uids=9063895&dopt=citation

Excellent answer, swansont. There appears to be no contention to it. Thread closed.

Thanks, swansont. Any questions? No? Closed.

Soon we will have a special forum called Speculations, where people with refutations to accepted theories can post their objections and, if they can provide enough validation, have their posts moved back into the Science forums. Until then, there's Pseudoscience.

Threads that start by repeating something found on the internet and then give no personal POV on the subject are not welcome on this forum. Thanks for sniffing out this interesting article and doing our Google work for us. But no thanks.

Would anything in the rules preclude pulling it to its destination? How about 25m of linked rubber bands attached to a wheeled vehicle? Might get snaps for original thinking....

Would "mechanism" rule out using a dog and some kind of reward system?

You forgot how proud you look in your new Christmas sweater and how slothful you are after being so gluttonous (especially when the triptophanes from the turkey kick in).

I don't have a problem with it either in this respect, john5746. Employers have the right to do their own checking, especially with the laws the way they are regarding referrals from past employers. You aren't even legally allowed to ask a former employer if they would hire the person again. All you can really ask is if they did indeed used to work there. What I object to with the laws in the UK is it's all-encompassing reach and the mandatory nature of it. Anyone who has contact with <18-agers? Does this include anyone who works at the GAP? Burger King? Running this kind of check every 6 months would get very costly.

Apparently background checks are getting to be SOP in the US for elementary through high school teachers. I didn't realize it had gone that far but it has. Some states have systems in place that will alert the school district if a teacher is arrested for any type of crime.

I have an "If you may use it this week sometime, don't put it away" desk philosophy. I tend to let stuff pile up until a purge is a necessity as opposed to simple maintenance. And I work from home so I tend to keep my desk "all business" as much as possible. Yesterday was Purge Day, so today is pretty sparse. Besides the comp, phone and yellow legal pad which are mainstays, I have: A miniature southwestern woven rug I use as a coffe cup coaster. My Pepe Le Pew coffee mug holding my pens. pencils & scissors. The D battery with a sprung paper clip taped to the top which was the weight for the trebuchet I built out of Kinex®, which until yesterday was also on my desk.

Tsk, tsk. You should wear gray (not too dark, not too light), avoid eye contact, keep your facial expression neutral and try not to breathe too much. Have a day. Or not, your choice of course.

The above two posts typify the PC GONE MAD! theme, as they highlight actions that are taken in anticipation of a PC outbreak. Fixing something that isn't broken, or in this case correcting something no one has objected to yet, is the grease that proves that this slippery slope is not fallacious in the least.

O - M - G!!! Please tell me that in your case it is at the university's expense! Not that that makes it any less grievous on the system as a whole, but I shudder to think of all the mentor programs that will fail if this is considered a personal expense. Watch for your police departments to request more funds for personnel to handle all these extra checks. If this were implemented in the US, I would suspect someone who owns a private nationwide background-checking firm of hiring lobbyists to help pass this law so millions would be required to use his services. Shall I assume this for anyone 18 and over to have contact with anyone under 18? Would this include the 18-year-old college freshman who wants to date the 17-year-old high school senior? While I can justify this law in regards to daycare centers, what a burden it will place on already underfunded school systems. Why, if this were to happen in the US it might mean that some of the sports programs would actually have to suffer.

I totally agree with this. If someone on this board says, "I have studied evolution (and gives factual information) and have found it conflicts with my spiritual beliefs", then they will have no problems here at SFN. But when someone says, "Evolution denies God because abiogenesis claims the Big Bang created man from apes", they are spreading false information about what science means by its theories. And when they continue to use such examples after being corrected ad infinitum, perhaps it's time for a specific site to take over those duties. Voilà! DeathToCreationism.com.

When Dave gets the time, we had decided to have two forums, Pseudoscience (for talks about aliens or telepathy) and Speculations (for theses that might actually have some scientific merit but disagree with current accepted theories). At that time the Physics forum will get an overhaul as well, implementing some of the feedback and suggestions you Experts have been asking for. I suggest we PM Davesbird and ask her to crack the whip (or prod or whatever).

IMO, what makes the above joke really funny is if Kylie has to agree to dress up like a man, not just look different by messing up her hair and smearing mud on herself. It's funnier if the guy just has to brag to another guy. Amazing Anagrams Dormitory = Dirty Room Desperation = A Rope Ends It The Morse Code = Here Come Dots Slot Machines = Cash Lost in 'em Animosity = Is No Amity Snooze Alarms = Alas! No More Z's Alec Guinness = Genuine Class Semolina = Is No Meal The Public Art Galleries = Large Picture Halls, I Bet A Decimal Point = I'm a Dot in Place The Earthquakes = That Queer Shake Eleven plus two = Twelve plus one Contradiction = Accord not in it To be or not to be: that is the question, whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune = In one of the Bard's best-thought-of tragedies, our insistent hero, Hamlet, queries on two fronts about how life turns rotten. That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind = A thin man left planet, makes a large stride, ran, pins flag on moon! On to Mars!

Let the watchword be that anything that is incapable of being falsified is outside any judgement by science and will therefore be ignored. Not ridiculed, not condemned, not supported, not encouraged, not allowed, just very simply IGNORED.

I suggest we clear out the other posts on the "Welcome Creationists" sticky (in Evolution AND Religion) that you and Dak wrote, add a terminology clarification post and then CLOSE the thread.

No debates here over evolution vs creationism, please. Let's answer this question and move on. Severian, the distinction we MUST make here is that science is not interested in matters of belief or faith, and concerns itself solely with testable, falsifiable theories. As for whether or not an omnipotent being created a world that simply looked billions of years old, that's the part that defies physics as we know it and is truly the point around which all the controversy revolves. If omnipotent creation is allowed as a scientific possibility then the doors are open wide for every believer who wants to theorize about their Flying Spaghetti Monsters. The staff at SFN must redouble their efforts to be sensitive to the faith of others, but allowing omnipotence into the hard science sub-forums would be counterproductive. DTC is simply an attempt to educate those who continue to misunderstand the differences between evolution, big bang, abiogenesis and the hunt for witches in general. We cannot continue to spend so much time trying to open the eyes of those who wear blinders by choice.