Dekan

The obvious answer, is that it's due to the fatalistic attitude induced by the Muslim religion. " Don't help yourself, Allah will provide". But could it be, because a lot of Muslim countries are in hot parts of the world. The heat disinclines the inhabitants to do any work. So they just lay around all the time. There's a similar effect in Europe. The hot Southern parts of Europe, like Greece, are full of people who don't work. This lack of work, causes their country to build up huge monetary debts. These debts then have to be paid by the hardworking Northern people. Like the people in Germany, who are rightly getting annoyed. Same with the USA, and her neighbouring country Mexico. In the last few decades, haven't you Americans let 50,000,000 Mexicans enter Southern and Western states like California? What effect have they caused? Your once hi-tech "Golden State" of California has become bankrupt, and even has power blackouts! This is a result of your letting in people with heat-induced torpor in their genes. You can't blame the new "Poor California" on religion. The Mexicans are all Catholics.

As for the single fact accounting for everything - isn't that exactly what theoretical physicists are seeking, in the yearned-for TOE. A single fact, in the form of a mathematical equation, which will explain the whole of physics, and hence - the whole physical Universe. Won't a physicist eventually find such an equation - or do you think none of them will ever be up to it. Regarding your disparaging comments on the "single carpenter who spoke Aramaic in the Roman Province of Judea ca. 30 AD" - why should personal circumstances stop a man of genius getting the right answer? Would you dismiss Isaac Newton as just "a single mathematician who spoke archaic English in the County of Lincolnshire ca. 1687 AD" - so the dumb hick didn't know what he was talking about?

Does anyone know a simple optical method to determine the focal length (FL) of a concave lens? A method which doesn't require any kind of precision instrument, such a pair of callipers to physically measure the degree of curvature of the glass surface of the lens. In the case of a convex lens, there is such a method. The convex lens converges light rays to a focus, at which an image forms. So all you have to do, to find its FL, is hold the lens against a sheet of white paper. Then move the lens away from the paper, until a distinct image appears on the paper. When the image is at its sharpest, the distance between the lens and the paper, gives you the FL. However, this method can't be used with a concave lens, since it doesn't converge the light-rays, it diverges them. So it won't produce a distinct image on a sheet of paper. The only way I know of finding the FL of a concave lens, is this: Use it in conjunction with a convex lens of known FL, say 10", to make a simple Galilean telescope. The convex lens is the Object Glass (OG) of the telescope, the concave lens is the Eyepiece(EP). Then determine empirically the magnification power of the telescope - by comparing the magnified view to the naked-eye view. The magnifying power is of course the result of the ratio OG/EP. So if the magnifying power is found to be 5X, the concave EP must have FL = 2" - Because 10"/2" = 5. This complicated-sounding method works, but can only be used where the magnifying power is small, so that it's easy to compare the magnified view with the naked-eye view, and so estimate the degree of magnification. I wonder, is there an alternative, simpler, optical method of measuring the FL of the concave lens?

And you are aware that those animals almost never attack humans? Lightning is far more of a hazard, gonna stop lightning? Yes, I know - but isn't the keyword "almost" never attack? Suppose you're lying in hospital, with half your face chewed off by a Grizzly. Would you be consoled by by being informed that what happened to you, was an extremely rare event? As for the lightning - on a human-controlled planet, we'd have full weather-conditioning. Random lighting strikes would not be permitted. Excess electrostatic charge build-up in the atmosphere would be harmlessly discharged to ground via a planetary network of lightning-rods. Even in the 18th century attacks on humans were very rare, about the same as today, you are afraid of wild animals aren't you? Do you swim in the ocean? Animals, almost every one fear humans, they do their best to not interact with humans, I live near alligators, i have swam with them many times, they try their best to get away from humans, recently a grizzly bear killed man in Yellowstone Park but it was clear she was defending her cubs, not attacking the man to eat him. You are many times more likely to die in a car crash, fall in the bath or be struck by lightning in your own home than be killed by wild animals in the wild. Rats which are a big part of the city you seem to like so much but they are responsable for far more deaths of humans than wild animals. We eleminate snakes becasue we fear them unreasonably but they eat rats, no other animals eats rats as effective as snakes but the rats muliply and bring on diesase that kills millions. Don't fool round with mother nature I am afraid of certain animals. Like sharks. I live on the south coast of England, and there aren't any sharks in the sea here. So I often go for a swim in the sea. But I wouldn't, if I knew there was even the possibility of a cruising shark biting me in half. If you swim with alligators, Moontanman, I salute your intrepidity Sir! (PS Apologies for incompetent way I've tried to do selective quotes from your post. I can't get the hang of it. Is there an idiot's guide to doing it?)

You're right of course. The whole ecosystem will have to be thoroughly reviewed. Then rationally planned by humans. We'll decide which species are needed, and which can be dispensed with. As I mentioned before, this could well be the role Gaia intends for us humans. After all the aeons of random and chaotic evolution, we are now here to take control, straighten things out, and get the planet properly organised.

But the "wild" in 21st Century America, has been sanitised of most of the really dangerous wild animals. Like grizzly bears and packs of hungry wolves. These predators would be only to keen to explore the diversity within you. (Your liver, kidneys and intestines would probably be eaten first. These bits are tasty and can be gulped down fast with minimal chewing and gnawing.) If the American countryside was really "wild", as it was in the 18th Century, you might not be so keen to wander around in it. Be thankful you live in modern times!

Thanks Moontanman. I note that you grew up in a very rural area. If you don't mind my asking: are you still living in a rural area? Or are you (as I suspect is probably the case) now living in a city? If you are, I have to ask - why did you move to the city?

Dream conciousness, from my own somnolent experience, exists in at least two forms or types: 1. The "weak" form. This is when you dream of (say) falling off a cliff. As you're about to hit the ground and be killed, you think "No, I won't really die, thank Heavens, - this is just a dream." 2. The "strong" form - This is when you realise that it's just a dream, and you think "Hmn, I can take control of the way this dream's going, and there won't be any repercussions when I wake up. So I can perform all kinds of discreditable actions, and get away with it." These type-2 "lucid dreams" are great fun, but alas they don't seem to occur very often.

Well, to each his own. Personally, my idea of heaven would be an Earth which we'd transformed into a huge, artificial, planet-wide city. In this city, we'd have nothing but civilised human beings, living peaceful lives, researching in libraries, scientific laboratories, and astronomical observatories. There'd also be art-galleries (for those who like that stuff). And everyone would get their groceries from abundant supermarkets with good parking places. As for all the old obsolete animals and plants, we'd preserve a few in Parks. But the Parks would contain only pretty flowers, trees, and nice harmless animals like ducks on ponds. Definitely no nasty things eating each other. That, to my mind, represents the future Earth towards which our Science is leading us. Who can seriously deny it would be a better place?

Yes, "Karma" is I think, the same thing as "Soul". A record, in God's mind, of what each human being does, during our life on Earth. The same concept, expressed by a different word. I can't see any need to suppose that "Souls" are some kind of independent entities. But if you want to do so, I don't think it makes any difference. You could say "The soul lives on after death" , or "Death doesn't erase God's memory of your actions", and that amounts to the same thing, don't you think?

"A television is as natural as a tree"? But a tree just grows by itself, naturally. Whereas my 50" plasma television, didn't grow by itself. It had to be designed and manufactured by the Panasonic Company of Osaka, Japan. There's a difference, surely?

A soul probably isn't a physical thing such as an arm, or a leg. More likely, the word "soul" just means - a kind of "record" which God keeps, of our actions. Good actions, earn us a plus point on the record. Bad actions, earn us a negative point. Then when we die, God adds up all the points on our record (or "soul"). If they add up to to an overall "plus" mark, we're rewarded by going to Heaven. If they add up to an overall "negative" mark, we're punished by going to Hell. Does that seem a reasonable interpretation of the word "soul"?

Thanks Moontanman for the interesting Scientific American link. The plan to repopulate the US with elephants may get support from a certain political party. Here in Britain, there are similar proposals to reintroduce wolves into Scotland. That seems to me, a retrograde step. Wolves were exterminated here, in (I think) the 17th or 18th century. For a good reason - because they're fierce wild animals, and sometimes attack people. Our ancestors knew that. As witness the fear conveyed in folk-tales like "Little Red Riding-Hood". Now we're in the 21st century, we've forgotten the fear, and have a "cuddly" view of the animals. But if they were put back into Scotland, sooner or later a pack of them would attack and eat someone. Then the lawyers would have a field day. I'm not rejecting the content of the article. I'm deploring the obfuscatory way in which it's written.

Arete, just to let you know that I tried to read the text in the links you courteously provided. However I gave up. They seem to be written not in clear English, but in some kind of opaque Scientologese. May I quote a sentence from one of the links: " We analyzed local experiments, long-term regional time series, and global fisheries data to test how biodiversity loss affects marine ecosystem services across temporal and spatial scales. " After struggling through that 5 times, I've got a dim idea of what it means. But what a linguistic atrocity it is! Redolent of "management-speak" at its worst. Surely, if an idea can't be put across in plain English, then the idea probably isn't worth anything. (QT and Relativity may be exceptions) . Your posts are much more lucid. I'll stick to reading them from now on.

If that happened, Arete, I would give it up as a bad job, and put artificial plastic flowers in the garden. The latest artificial flowers look extremely realistic. They only lack scent. However, I'm sure it won't be long before scent-impregnated plastic becomes available. Then I'll be able to enjoy a nice garden, without all the muck and bugs. Thanks for the links you kindly supplied. I want to give proper consideration to these, but am getting a bit tired now, as it's quarter past ten, so I'll come back to you tomorrow, if I may. Cheers.

I've looked at the "Trade Theory" link, but couldn't make any sense of it. With regard to the OP, nearly all scientific advances come from Europe and North America. Japan has superb engineers, and some Chinese scientists living in the US make contributions to theoretical physics. Otherwise Asia seems quite unproductive, scientifically. Nor does South America appear to be a hotbed of scientific progress. Australia has good scientists, because the Aussies are transplanted Europeans. As for Africa..... well, perhaps "Live Aid" should be followed by "Science Aid". With equal success. How can science ever be globalized?

I don't feel guilty about it. I like what we humans are doing: we're improving the Earth's ecosystem, by getting rid of all the unnecessary organisms. It's like creating a garden. Do you want a mass of rank weeds in it - or pleasant pretty flowers, like roses. If your roses get afflicted by insect pests, like aphids and things, don't you spray insecticide to get rid of the pests? Is it wrong to do that? What humans are doing (maybe unconsciously) is spraying the Earth to get rid of weeds and pests, so that it can become Garden Earth. Probably Gaia has evolved the human species, to fulfil the role of her gardener.

Thanks CharonY, Arete, and Moontanman for your replies, which I've carefully read. This is how I look at it: Human beings are the most valuable animals on Earth. (I know CharonY doesn't subscribe to that, but surely we must be, as no other animals are capable of having discussions like this). We should therefore arrange things on Earth, so that the planet can support as many human beings as possible. That means getting rid of all other animals, except ones we need. These would be, at first, a small number of species, needed for food. Later, these can be dispensed with - as soon as we learn how to make synthetic food from basic raw materials. Plants do that all the time, I'm sure we can too. Moontanman's point about the medicinal potential of other species is valid at present. But future science will let us design our own medicines, without relying on serendipitous discoveries in the Amazon rainforest, or weird cuttlefish. In general, we should treat our planet as a "space-station" for humans to live on. We already do that on a small scale - the currently orbiting International Space Station doesn't have all kinds of other animals running around in it. The Earth shouldn't either - it should be a fitting home for humanity. We shouldn't be concerned with preserving Earth's existing primitive, cruel eco-structure - let's use our human powers to design a bright new civilised one!

I applaud your good intentions. But the oceans will probably get along all right by themselves, whatever humans dump in them. For example, during WWII, German U-boats sank millions of tons of Allied shipping in the North Atlantic. As a result, the floor of the North Atlantic is today littered with thousands of wrecked ships. These ships contain highly noxious cargoes. Such as planes, tanks, petroleum, bombs, shells, explosives, and tins of US Spam. All this huge mass of stuff has been in the ocean for well over half a century. And the ocean seems to have absorbed it without showing any distress. So will the ocean really get distressed, by our chucking plastic supermarket bags in it?

Thanks Hal. I hadn't realised that a single hive could produce as much as 80lbs. I envisioned a bee-keeper pulling a single frame out of a hive. The frame just has little hexagon cells on it. So even if each cell's full of honey, there wouldn't be more than an ounce or so on the frame. I suppose the bee-keeper scrapes the honey out, then puts the frame back, and the bees fill the cells up again. Why do the bees keep doing it - 80lbs of honey must be far in excess of what the bees actually need. When they find they're being continually made to produce excess honey, why don't they get exasperated and desert the hive? Thanks Moontanman for the interesting information - I vaguely knew there are different kinds of honey, but your post has opened my eyes to the depth of the subject, thanks again!

I always put a spoonful of honey on my breakfast porridge. (Granulated sugar tastes nicer, but honey is better for health, supposedly). The thing is, where does all the honey come from. I buy my honey in a jar, from a local supermarket, and its shelves always have masses of jars stacked on them. When you think of how many supermarkets there are in the world, and how many jars of honey they have on their shelves, how much honey does that represent - a million tons? Could that massive amount really all come from bees - wouldn't there have to be so many bees, to produce it, that there'd be huge bee-farms all over the place? But has anyone ever seen them? The suspicion therefore arises in my mind, that the "honey" sold in supermarkets, is actually some synthetic product made in factories. Could honey easily be synthesised in a factory?

Politicians want to keep NATO, because they can do things under its name, without sounding bad in the news. The politicians figure this way: Suppose the news reported that "American planes are bombing Libya", or "British planes are bombing Libya". That might upset American and British voters. Who might ask awkward questions as to why their planes are doing it. But if the news says: "NATO planes are bombing Libya", that sounds better, because the voters aren't quite sure what this "NATO" thing is. So the voters will think, "Well, it's probably OK then", and will keep re-electing the politicians.

I entirely agree with your very wise post, but you must accept the fact that 99% of humans are not as enlightened as you. Can you deter a stupid thief from stealing your car, by appealing to his belief in "ethics"? If you said, "Don't steal my car - that's ethically wrong", wouldn't he just laugh at you?

No, it's a bad thing for the future of civilisation and science. The so-called "Rise of Asia", is only happening because Europe and America are being forced down a path to destruction. If Europe and America had been left to carry on, undisturbed by malign influences, they would have overwhelmed Asia by the superiority of Western culture, civilisation, and above all - science. As it is, who knows what will happen. I think the USA is now a lost cause. Doomed to Third-World status by 2040. I live in England, and hope that we will do better.