Mr Skeptic

There's other objectives people need to have, like having children, to be evolutionarily fit. But we do seem to be made to want to survive and perpetuate our genes. Occasionally, we want something that reduces our fitness, like suicide or perhaps smoking.

But don't seeds have just a tiny bit of metabolism?

It's just a point about how widespread dragonlore is throughout the world. There are dragon stories in China too, but the Chinese dragons are different.

Ooops, sorry, I meant Job 41: Seems like a large, strong, highly-armored, fire-breathing, reptilian aquatic creature.

Well, there's the "island rule" that all animals on islands tend toward rabbit size. The smaller ones become bigger and the bigger ones become smaller. Humans certainly have genes affecting their size, and it shouldn't be too hard to make a small breed of humans if there were an advantage to it. So I'd say its definitely plausible, but it would be nice if they found a few more bones.

OK, you get the animals to stop killing each other and humans, and I'll get the humans to stop killing each other and animals.

As opposed to "political terminology" where "absolutely certain" can mean "less than 50% probability", and where "theory" can mean "wild-assed guess" or "scientific law" depending on which is convenient at the moment.

Dragons seem to be a very widespread myth. Also, ancient dragon myths didn't always have the fire-breathing dragons with the stubby wings that wouldn't get them anywhere (sometimes they didn't have any wings). Some dragons spat acid or poison. Many (most?) didn't have wings. If a dinosaur were alive in a culture that had dragon myths, it would be called a dragon (the name "dinosaur" is very new). It's entirely conceivable that dragon myths are based on dinosaurs. Perhaps not even on live dinosaurs, but dinosaur bones would work as well. Some reptiles were able to spit poison, but I don't know of any that could breathe fire. The bombardier beetle is able to sqirt steam out its behind. Also, if you care, the bible describes what appear to be dragons or dinosaurs in Job 40

Yes, yes, but don't let your girlfriend hear you speak like that

Does your marginal cost curve cross the zero axis at either of these minima? Unless the cost is zero something seems a bit fishy there.

That's about right. You should be clear as to counter clockwise from which direction though (best use east and west). The earth actually spins a tiny bit slower than 360 degrees per day, making up for that with its motion around the sun as far as days are concerned. Edit: fixed. Thanks doG.

You could try putting a thermometer out in the open on top of a slab of styrofoam. Compare to a thermometer below the styrofoam. Not the best of measures, but it may give you an idea.

You mean like how a time machine might be used to generate infinite knowledge by repeatedly sending information back in time?

New Scientist mentioned this. Apparently the protein helps form ice crystals, which grow enough to fall, either as rain or snow. The bacteria benefits from this because while it can survive in the atmosphere, there really isn't anything to do there so it needs to get a ride down.

Slinkey, you didn't read the second part in which the letter says that not only should they kill your father, but that they need to send the letter back in time or they wouldn't receive it. This would be obvious to them because otherwise there would be no one to send the letter in the first place since the events in the letter would have never happened.

They did, of course.

The cat observes whether or not the poison vial broke... Anyhow, quantum doesn't really work like that, when a quantum state gets too big it collapses.

You don't. You never existed. The government sent the letter to themselves.

Reflexes bypass the brain to save time. If you hurt your hand, your spinal cord tells your hand to pull away, as well as passing the message along to your brain. From what you said, it seems you aren't aware that the nerve impulse carrying the pain information has to pass along your arm to the spinal cord and up to your brain. I shouldn't have used the word "bypass" as it gives the wrong impression. Your subconscious may also do reflexes, like the blink reflex or certain reflexes learned by driving pass through your brain but you can act before you are consciously aware of what is happening. This saves precious time -- you might avoid getting your hand mangled or something in your eye. Your subconscious deals with most of the information from your senses. Most of the information is discarded, but new or important information is not. In some cases, your subconscious will pass the message along to your conscious for further actions. If you cut your hand, you will need to consciously stop the bleeding.

Here's something I've been wondering about for a while. We're a technological species, that can create tools external to ourselves for our own use. Is there a possiblity that a species could be a bio-technological species, that is able to manipulate it's body to make new tools or proteins or enzymes or antibodies? Basically an organism that is able to genetically engineer itself. For example if a critter had a mechanism to "intentionally" mutate an mRNA (or copy and mutate DNA) for an enzyme, but place the resulting enzyme in a vessicle to test its effectiveness. Then if it is useful, add the new information to its genome. Though relatively simple, however, it seems that the path to something like that would be irreducibly complex and highly disadvanteous until complete. Maybe it could start from an immune system kind of thing. In any case, if something like that could be made, it might be far more useful than our own technological method. The information could be easily shared (as easy as sex ), and could exist in such a data-dense form that it would put our own crude hard drives and such to shame. At about 1,000,000,000,000 gigabits per cubic centimeter, an individual could conceivably be able to store an entire civilization's worth of data. And if it could develop DNA computing, it might put our best brains and computers to shame. Anyhow, do people think it would be possible for a critter to manipulate it's own DNA? Could if form naturally, or would it have to be artificially created, or would it be plain impossible?

I think that the length of time an intelligent species remains technologically advanced would be indefinitely high. Even if there were a cataclysmic event that destroyed their civilisation, bits of knowledge would remain and would provide a tremendous advantage to those who possessed them. Intelligent, technologically advanced species are far likelier to avoid extinction due to natural disasters, as they would be able to work as a whole to avoid, prevent, mitigate, adapt such disasters. Though it is conceivable that they destroy themselves, I don't think that would be likely. As to the Drake equation itself, it is an obvious equation but the constants are at best educated guesses.

Yes, as Atheist said the rule about external websites is more about spam prevention. Most spam is commercial in nature, but some is just someone showing off their blog. In any case, you should avoid things like including just a link and a sentence. But you can include the link, and the admins can remove the link if they think it is spammy. As part of your post it likely won't be a problem.

I think it has to do with connections between neurons, that get reinforced the more often they fire together. How exactly that makes us intelligent is a bit beyond me -- I compare that to how an operating system on a computer runs itself. Anyhow there are trillions of brain cells, each with thousands of connections to other brain cells if I remember right. Actually, thoughts and perceptions are first unconscious and then conscious (by milliseconds). Things slowly fade into the unconscious as they become more familiar. Reflex reactions like avoiding pain can bypass the brain, getting processed by the nerves in the spinal cord. The spinal cord says yank your hand back, and then sends the signal along to the brain saying ouch. Wikipedia is usually my first source nowadays, and they sometimes have links to good external websites as well. But you need to get the right article, be it about learning, reflex, or consciousness.

And yet color is an intrinsic property of the universe; if a tree grew in the forest and there was no one there to see it it would still be green. Color is simply photons of a particular wavelength/frequency/energy (take your pick), and can be defined in a rigorous, objective, scientific manner. It is no harder to explain red than it is to explain infrared as far as science is concerned. Do not confuse color with the perception of color (as you also seem to confuse time with the perception of time). It is not easy to convey to another the internal states of the neurons in your brain. If the person you are communicating with does not have analogous internal states and a label to go with them it is hard to communicate it. Explaining color to a blind person would be like explaining 5 dimensional objects to someone else -- they simply cannot relate to it, but that has no bearing on whether what you are explaining exists or not.

If it were for some reason possible for you to travel back in time before you were born and change the past, it would be possible for you to eliminate your own existence. Simply send a letter back in time telling a paranoid government official that your father is an evil terrorist bent on destroying the world, and explain how they need to send the letter back in time to themselves after killing your father because if they don't then they wouldn't receive the letter in the first place. This would be true because otherwise there would be no reason to send the letter. Result: you cause your father to die before you are born, causing you to cease to exist. The cause of your non-existence is then perpetuated by the government instead of you.