Mr Skeptic

Well, you are right. An atom is anything with one or more protons in the nucleus, and the element is based on the number of protons. The number of neutrons has no bearing on whether something is an atom or not, nor on what element it is. Different isotopes do have slightly, slightly different chemical properties, not that you would notice on anything other than hydrogen isotopes. The ratio of neutrons to protons required for stable isotopes increases as the mass of the atom increases. Only rather light atoms would have a 1:1 ratio, if they are supposed to be stable.

While it may be justifiable to cheat, those for whom that would be true would also have no need to cheat and would know better than to try. I suppose a retarded teacher giving really long and useless busywork would be a case where I'd consider it justifiable, if still unwise. Even so, the proper course of action would be to try to get said teacher replaced. I'm guessing that in the US some public school teachers would be like this but un-fireable.

Well the thing about high speed rail, is that it is a substitute for airplane flights, and faster than normal ground travel.

Hm, kind of interesting that they're attempting the ban route rather than the tax route. It also won't work, since chefs will just add some salty ingredient instead. And on the whole it is a thoroughly retarded idea. I'd venture that this is pseudolegislation by someone trying to say they're in favor of public health, and possibly also to paint someone else as opposed to health.

Well the aftershocks you're getting are stronger than the strongest earthquake I've ever been in.

Except of course those pesty chimeras that you keep forgetting about. So wrong wrong wrong, sorry try again. Wrong wrong wrong. In science we assume things to be true if it provides predictive values, until there is even a single counterexample. No, I don't consider something undefinable just because someone proposes a silly definition that happens to be wrong. And if a definition applies to only 99.6% of cases, I consider it wrong wrong wrong. A definition has to apply to 100% of the cases; that is the whole point of a definition. Definitions are one of the few things that we can be certain of. Again though, how does that make my cells not alive? They are not an organism any more than an egg is, I'll grant you that. But, you had said they are not alive, and now you change that to organism. Incidentally, cells can be grown in a culture outside of the organism they belong to. If you mean this link, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life And I showed that a skin cell meets the qualifications. Which specific qualification did you say was lacking? Oh right, you didn't. --- And you also ignored chimeras again. Feel free to tell me how a chimera is two people any time now, or how your definition of person is wrong wrong wrong.

And yet even subjective things can be said to be more or less, sometimes even objectively. You can, for example, objectively tell whether something is taller than another, regardless of whether you subjectively consider it to be "tall". Money is also a thing that you have or you don't. That doesn't change that some people have more money than others. There's two separate questions, "Do you have money" and "How much money do you have". The same seems to be true of faith. Why does Jesus talk of people having not enough faith, or faith the size of a mustard seed, if faith is a binary yes/no thing? Same with the apostles: For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Romans 12:3 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man's gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. Romans 12:6 Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? James 2:5 Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedOh, and if we want definitions, presumably a biblical definition may be desirable, at least for Christians: Hebrews 11:1 New International Version (©1984) Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. New Living Translation (©2007) Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. English Standard Version (©2001) Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. New American Standard Bible (©1995) Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. International Standard Version (©2008) Now faith is the assurance that what we hope for will come about and the certainty that what we cannot see exists. GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995) Faith assures us of things we expect and convinces us of the existence of things we cannot see. King James Bible Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. American King James Version Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. American Standard Version Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, a conviction of things not seen. Bible in Basic English Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the sign that the things not seen are true. Douay-Rheims Bible Now faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not. Darby Bible Translation Now faith is the substantiating of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. English Revised Version Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the proving of things not seen. Webster's Bible Translation Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Weymouth New Testament Now faith is a well-grounded assurance of that for which we hope, and a conviction of the reality of things which we do not see. World English Bible Now faith is assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen. Young's Literal Translation And faith is of things hoped for a confidence, of matters not seen a conviction,

Well odds are that Mars would be colonized by a country, probably the US, as some form of investment or enhancement of power. To do this, we would at first spend a lot of resources on them, and perhaps later demand somewhat of them. In the first case, us earthlings might get jealous of all the money going to our extraterrestrial colonies. In the second case, the space faring folks might resent the control or demands placed on them. We've made colonies before, and they tend to seek independence from their mother country.

Again, what person? I never said killing more people is better than killing one, I said that it is not a person because it is not an individual. Kind of like 2.0001 is not an even number because close as it may be to 2 it is not divisible by 2 and so does not fit the definition. An individual is no more, no less than 1, not something that may or may not be any positive number of individuals. I think you'll find that my cells, excluding skin and hair cells, are both living and human, just like a fertilized egg. If you think my cells don't meet the definition of life it is because you got the definition wrong. Feel free to drink a poison that presumably kills cells if you think that your cells aren't alive (so can't be killed). But tell me, what criterion do my cells not meet? They are self-contained, maintain homeostasis, metabolize, catabolize, reproduce, grow, respond to their environment. So how do you figure they are not alive? Please, stop inventing private definitions that no one else uses. Use actual definitions, or at least share your own. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged No, that is patently untrue as I have demonstrated. Even discounting that some fertilized eggs may die before reaching sentience or some other hallmark of personhood, there is still the issue of chimeras. A chimera, in case you didn't notice, is when two or more different fertilized eggs merge to form what we later after it grows up regard as a single person. Cells descended from both the eggs make up this single person; it's not like one died out. Or perhaps you consider a chimera to be two people? Each of my cells is also one celled and human, so there is also that.

That, and energy. Space solar is the most abundant form of energy available in the solar system, and can be "imported" as microwaves.

That depends on what you consider mass to be, and in any case is no surprise. If you consider mass to be the intrinsic, invariant mass, than it won't increase and no surprise. If you consider mass a form of energy, it does increase and again no surprise.

Ah, well you explained it better. Ah, well there's all sorts of different stories, mostly dealing in some way with stinginess. In one of those, the tramp actually makes use of the woman's stinginess, in that she greedily wants to know how to make nail soup so she can save money on food. Instead of course she ends up cooking up a nice soup for the tramp. In another, the villagers offer ingredients in exchange for some of the soup (ingredients that they have hidden from each other, being a time of famine and all). This is actually similar to the modern scam, the Nigerian scam, where someone tricks their victim by offering to give them tons of money for their "assistance" for the simple task of transferring money. Instead, they have them make a bank account for this transfer and then drain the account and vanish.

No, but we'd kill each other off less. So there! (Also, we'd start caring more about "our" planet rather than "the" planet and whether we should reduce pollution if it will weaken us compared to "them" other countries.) --- Also, I think $50 per pound is extremely cheap and your other estimates too high. Remember that the big portion of the cost here is to escape Earth's gravity well, and do so with huge thrust. Once we get stuff in space, we can shuttle it all over the place rather cheaply. Landing can be done without rockets by using a heat shield. We can have specialized shuttles to go back and forth between Earth and Mars, but not land there. If we can make fuel in space the costs for this will be vastly reduced. Liftoff could be done via specialized lifters, and space travel with more efficient engines such as ion or plasma. Even better, we could make something like a launch loop, which would make liftoff much cheaper than rockets.

There is balance because forces point toward the gradient of potential energy.

Correct. It takes more information to accurately describe noise. Whether the noise conveys anything or not is a different question. Incidentally, compression results in a string of data that looks almost like noise.

It is highly improbably that the patient would be allergic to all antibiotics. However, I have heard of using blue light to kill bacteria. It may not be necessary to use UV.

If you have parasitic orchids, then they definitely will be able to absorb sugar. I think most plants would be able to anyways, but I'm not sure. If the plant can absorb sugar, it can grow that much quicker as it won't have to get its carbon from the air via photosynthesis. Just be sure your sugar doesn't become a breeding ground for bacteria.

If you get a harmless infection, your immune system can handle it (this actually is the basis of some vaccines, especially old vaccines). Without an immune system anything piercing your skin could potentially kill you. You can also get sick in various ways without being infected, such as poison or autoimmune disease.

Not true at all; however, proponents of certain forms of eugenics were huge fans of the theory of evolution.

Ah, but then we can expand "us" to include everyone on earth, something we couldn't do without having a "them" off our planet. I really do think going into space will unify Earth, at least a little. (If done internationally or independently.) Also, we'll once again have a frontier, rather than having to fight others for territory.

The thing is that in the story, the one with the villagers, the villagers didn't really have much food and they weren't sharing it with each other, or something. Essentially he got them all to put in an ingredient that they had, and everyone got some good soup. Not really a very realistic scenario, but there you go. I haven't heard of the one with the grandmother though.

Likewise, cats are not mammals because their definitions are not the same.

Indeed, someone was opposing the proposed healthcare bill as it is a socialist program, and I thought it would amuse them to see how many other socialist services our government already provides -- some of which I'm sure he approves of. Regardless of all these socialist programs, I wouldn't consider the US to be socialist unless over half our money went to socialist programs. As it is, we are a mixed economy leaning toward capitalism, and that's just fine with me. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged I think jackson33's examples of federal expansions of power seem to be a legal loophole that allows the federal to blackmail the states, by taking their money and only offering it back if they do as told. That's definitely coercion, though not force. Of course the states can refuse if they don't mind saying goodbye to their own money. Ah, but it seems to me that for the most part they choose a single issue or two, or at least some people seem to do that.

Indeed, and now you perhaps can see why I keep asking how many persons a fertilized egg is supposed to be. An individual is exactly 1, no more and no less. Is an egg exactly 1 person, or not? If not, then it by your definition cannot be a person, since it is not an individual. As for #6, that is not so much a definition as deferring to the legal system instead, and could be completely arbitrary (eg a corporation). Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged But, each of my cells also have the "nature" portion completed, and just need the "nurture" component. Yet I don't consider my cells to each be individual persons, whereas you seem to think they would.

On the other hand, for people living below the poverty line, that "few hundred dollars" might be a year's worth of wages.