Mr Skeptic

Sort of. If you throw something really fast, its density will be the dominant factor for the energy/momentum transfer speed (or if you prefer, how deep a hole it can poke into something). Hence one reason for the use of depleted uranium for ammunition. In addition, a denser object will generally lose less energy to drag on its way to the target. If the object in question is soft enough or the speed slow enough, then the "softness" of the projectile is also an issue. A soft projectile will deform on impact, which will increase the surface area and lose kinetic energy dependent on the sort of forces involved in the deformation. Note that this is not necessarily better for the target; an unarmored human will take more damage from a bullet that deforms because it can leave a much larger hole, whereas the armor piercing bullet will pass right through them with less damage. As such, for soft targets extra surface area results in more momentum transfer because otherwise the bullet would go right through. This also relates somewhat to density, since less dense things are frequently (but not always) softer, eg a sponge or tennis ball vs a baseball, and so can deform more. Another aspect of deforming is that such increases the time of contact, so lessens the instantaneous forces and energy transfer involved. Finally, if you have an elastic collision, the result is (potentially) less energy transfer to the target and double the momentum transfer, however it is likely the target would be unharmed since damaging the target would make the collision inelastic.

As I understand it, the standard slaughtering techniques are as humane as possible, but exceptions are made to the laws so that traditional slaughtering techniques are still allowed. In any case, I'm sure that occasionally people fail at properly performing a halal/kosher slaughtering too. As for the 3/4 number, could you give a reference for that? It seems to me that would be unacceptably low.

If there are less people willing to do these jobs (just because they now have more opportunities), the wages paid for the job need simply be increased until someone is willing to do them. There's no real reason why a manager must be paid more than a janitor -- it's just an issue of supply and demand. Sure, if there's less people wanting to do the "crappy" jobs, then perhaps some of them will get done a little less, but there will also be more people doing the better jobs, and everyone gets paid better.

Actually, I think the most important step is making sure you have a theory. Making sure it is new would also be good, but that will happen sooner or later even if you don't want to check for yourself. To make sure you have a theory, you want it to be able to make very specific predictions, which if they turn out not to be true will disprove your theory. And then show that the predictions are accurate. The only reason I say this is because by far the majority of people wanting to talk about their new theory don't actually have one, or it is obviously false, and on rare occasions they manage to think up of a well-known theory. These problems are also compounded by their not wanting to tell people about their "theory" because they're afraid someone will steal the credit. In fact, I've never seen anyone asking about their new theory that had anything significant to share. Anyhow, just publish it somewhere that has a verifiable date attached, a journal would be the best but there's plenty of ways you could do it that won't require nearly as much effort on your part.

I think the way it works is motivation + opportunity = success. And I think that what most people are lacking from that equation is motivation. Opportunities, for the most part, can be created at will.

Hm, well there's still absurd amounts of resources available in space, which could allow our population to keep expanding. We'd eventually still have to stop population growth on earth, and even with all the space resources we can reach we'd have to slow our growth from exponential to at most cubic (very far in the future). As for the non-renewable resources, they won't be much of a problem if we switch to renewable energy. The material resources might become more expensive, but in the end it will just take extra energy and labor to extract them from poorer ores, and in that way they will still be available for a very long time. One example of something that could solve all of earth's energy needs is space solar power. As for expansion in space, I'm still undecided as to whether it would be better to take a planet or build space habitats to mine asteroids (which would make for much more efficient use of resources).

When you have that many questions, of a very general nature, you can be sure that the answers are all online. You could get your answers much more quickly and in as much detail as you care to read, by searching for them. Wikipedia will probably tell you all you need to know, otherwise Google search will find your answers. It's just polite to do that before taking up real people's time asking for explanations to things you probably should have learned in class. In any case, that's probably better for whatever test you probably have coming up, both time-wise and for the detail. (The same goes even if this is not for a class).

I think it sounds like a good idea but with a modification to make it easier to exploit the moon's energy. Instead of building a hugely expensive (energetically, materially, and technologically) ring around the moon's orbit, we could use the moon's kinetic energy via gravity directly from earth. My modification to your idea is that we make huge pools of water, the bigger the better. Because of the inverse square law for gravity, some parts of these pools will be more strongly attracted to the moon than others. This will result in bulges in the huge pools of water that rise and fall periodically as the moon/earth system move. A bonus to my version over yours is that my system could also use the kinetic energy of the earth-sun system, again via gravity and directly from earth, with the same infrastructure as for getting the moon's energy. Anyhow, as the water bulges move around the earth, we could let them in to an enclosure, and then when the bulges move away, we'll have a lot of water with a bit of a gravitational potential energy, which we can release for energy. Oh, and for whatever it's worth since salt water is denser than fresh water, it would be better if the water in question were salty. Also, to save on infrastructure costs and environmental damage, it would be better if these huge pools of water and enclosures were naturally formed. So what do you think of my idea? Just gotta think of a name for it now.

Yeah, it's pretty simple. All you have to do for these is cancel out the appropriate units until you end up with the unit you want. If your mass for the atoms is per atom, you can get the number of atoms in a mass by dividing mass/(mass per atom), and if your mass is for a mole of atoms then doing that would give you the number of moles of atoms, which with Avogadro's number will give you the number of atoms. It's more complicated if you have more than one type of atom, but still works if you know the ratios.

No. What I am saying is that if you measure the amount of reparations by comparing the prosperity of previous slaves vs those who remained in Africa, it might be the descendants of the previous slaves that would have to end up paying for the "favor" of being "allowed" to "immigrate". Which would be extremely distasteful, impractical, and an insult to everyone. When compared to the average American they would still be worse off though. As for the actual slavery, as repugnant as it is now, it was legal then and the people involved are all dead, and we don't inherit blame for crimes, no matter how bad they may be. Hence why I said any reparations would have to be for the currently ongoing effects only, rather than for past deeds. Actually, I think the best way to make "reparations" for slavery would be to have a progressive taxation system, so that the rich people end up paying some of the poor people's share of the taxes. We could also have publicly funded education, to make up for the fact that the economically disadvantaged would otherwise not be able to afford the same education as the wealthy which would also perpetuate these disadvantages. As a bonus, this system would improve class mobility so even the wealthy have to make some effort rather than coast on their inherited wealth. If you like this idea, you should lobby your congressman to implement it as soon as possible.

It would be very impractical to do it any other way. The laws we have are largely to protect ourselves, and someone being able to kill one of "us" and get away with that is dangerous. This is why we must be a bit overly aggressive in ensuring that all of "us" is covered and there is no threat to "us". Even if legally allowed, killing a braindead person will still be repulsive to us, because of their similarity, and that is likewise why killing apes is more repulsive than killing bugs.

I'm a little ambivalent about leaking other countries' naughty bits (eg the Saudi Arabia one, which is their naughty bit if we didn't accept).

I'm not joking. If they wanted to die, and become a martyr and an inspiration to others like him, and presumably go to heaven and claim his 77 virgins (or whatever the count has been increased to lately), why should we help him along with that part of his plan. No, let the failed suicide bomber sit in a cell for a while, so he can ponder his failure, the fact that his god isn't breaking him out of jail, etc. If he was so willing to die why should his punishment be death?

If any such reparations were to be made, I think they would have to be for the effects of slavery on the current populations. As they say, "you need money to make money", and the slave-owners profited at the expense of the slaves, and likewise from said wealth differences the slave-owner's ancestors still have the advantage over the slave's descendants, due to said slavery. However, if you compare the slave's descendants to people still in Africa, perhaps their plight isn't really so dire. I'm sure that there's plenty of Africans who would love to immigrate here even if they had to give up all their material possessions in the process.

Isn't the sun the source for both lowering thermodynamic entropy and lowering information entropy? After all, the sun's hydrogen atoms are combining in such a way as to make an informationally more complex system (contains stuff other then pure low information entropy hydrogen), the information entropy of life can decrease (eg we make ordered arrangements of molecules), at the expense of increasing the information entropy of the sun (it continuously gains has more possible states).

Suicide bombers are actually the type of violent criminal that I think least deserve the death penalty.

It was raised before and dodged. It was raised again and dodged again. All you do is define functional to mean functional, by which you seem to mean whatever you want to be functional is and whatever would be evidence for evolution isn't. Because you're hiding behind that word to pretend that evidence for evolution is meaningless because something is or isn't functional, but then you acknowledge that "functional" is a red herring and that you mean nothing by it. Did you think no one would notice or what? So let's all drop the word "functional" then, it is nothing but a distraction. Information is information whether it is functional or not, and things do as the laws of physics say they do regardless of who intended what. Ah, so by "functional information" did you mean something like "a string that in addition contains a certain attribute(s) which make a string having those attributes significantly less common than a string which does not"? Good, then have we seen the last of your using "functional" as an objection? Interesting. Looks like it's just the same formula as for information, but with the probability of the information being instead the probability of its being better for a given function than a threshold. But I don't think we can use that here, not unless we care to calculate the odds of something of having a given function at or above a certain threshold.

So is your new claim that the intent of the aspirin pill was to reduce the chances of heart attacks even years before that was known to be a function they have? Or why exactly are you taking that as not being an example of a function that did not require intent? OK, if you don't want to define functional, I will do it for you. If you disagree, then disagree by pointing out what is wrong with mine and giving your own definition. Functional: Possesses certain attributes that allow it to be used in a certain arbitrary manner, called the function. The function may or may not be useful, may or may not be intended, and an object may have more than one function it may be used for. Whether something is functional or not depends as much on the arbitrarily chosen function as on the object itself. "functional" is also a word used by certain creationists to require intent, as if things would violate the laws of nature because the all-mighty creationist didn't intend the object to do something. In this they use "functional" so that they can choose the attributes required of an object for them to allow it to be called functional, while simultaneously denying things created by non-intelligent processes function because there was no intent. In this sense, that word functions as a way to allow them to change an argument drastically but with a seemingly small and innocuous change. Ah, so "functional information" means "information"? Just what I suspected, just an extra word there so you can pretend it means something when you need it to.

As I understand it, quantum mechanics is supposed to have true randomness. I don't really understand why it's necessary and I certainly don't like it. But it seems that's how it is.

In the US, it is illegal to die of old age (or rather for the doctor to report that as cause of death). In any case, "old age" doesn't really kill you, it just means you're breaking down bit by bit and when one of the important bits completely breaks down that is what kills you. Of course lots of less important bits failing or partially failing simultaneously might also do it, then it's hard to say what exactly was the cause. Much like a car can't really "die of old age", it's always one or more specific things breaking that means the car is broken.

That's an appeal to ignorance, a demonstration of ignorance, and in post 213 just before yours that you read, I gave an example (aspirin pill) of something that has a function other than the intended function, which was only discovered later. Thus I proved it absolutely positively as sure as it is possible to prove anything (proof by example, only one example is needed). I'm actually rather amused someone would think that things would magically violate the laws of nature to do different things just because someone intended it differently, didn't intend it, or whatever else they may think. Do you think you're God or something, above the laws of physics? And if you don't think I proved it, it is not even my burden of proof, since you are the one who's trying to wiggle out of things by claiming special excemptions for things due to being functional or not (which you have yet to even define, and yes, I do mean in a clear and non-circular way, so I couldn't take on the burden of proof if I wanted to unless you want to concede the definition of functional to my choice of definition). As to whether there's some greater cause/intent/design, if so than all processes would have intent and design, would they not? Which would of course make such meaningless since it describes everything. DNA is a molecule that contains information. It is both a chemical and a string of information. It is not a message though, at least not in the usual sense.

Rice has plenty of carbs, which can indeed make you fat. Not as bad as sugar, but possibly worse than fats. Pretty much the same as bread or other stuff made from grains. You can certainly do far worse; I wouldn't really consider rice unhealthy, although then it becomes a question of quantity. In any case, the asians don't seem to have a problem with it.

Correct. Random processes do not generate intent. Fortunately, intent is not needed for things to function. Things work as they do regardless of, and quite frequently in spite of, the intent of the process that created them (as all computer programmers soon find out). Given that intent is irrelevant to functioning, why do you bring it up when talking about function? Is it because randomness does not have intent, and so you're trying to define functionality in such a way that by definition excludes randomly generated things? Yet things can have unintended functions, and they are nevertheless functions. For example, the Aspirin pill was not designed to treat heart problems, but that is one of its functions and is now used for that in addition to its original function as pain medication. Does that mean the Aspirin pill does not function to reduce the risk of heart attacks, because that was not the intent when it was created?

Plain old entropy is irrelevant to evolution (as described by most creationists anyways) because there are many common examples of things that decrease in entropy, for example, plants. Entropy in one system can be decreased at the cost of increasing entropy in another system, but our sun provides the required energy. As for "information entropy", it relates to communication. Take for example, a message you know to be randomly generated which says: "The largest elephant ever recorded weighed about 24,000 lb". Now, what does this message tell you? The answer is: nothing! No, it does not tell you anything about elephants, in particular nothing about the weight of the largest elephant. Why? It is a randomly generated message, that's why. Sure, the message seemed like a meaningful and informative sentence, but on occasion randomly generated messages would. But you cannot trust anything stated in a randomly generated message, because it could easily have said anything else, for example oz instead of lb. More likely of course it would have just been gibberish, but even when it does not look like gibberish a randomly generated message is still gibberish. But what if you are not talking about communication? Consider, can a randomly generated string of bits be a prime number? Yes. Can it be alliteration? Yes. Can it be a metaphor? Yes. Can it be a string of bits that correspond to a series of sequences of amino acids that when taken as a whole can self-replicate? Of course. These things it can be, but it can't be an informative message. Therefore, creationists will use a theory about communication to talk about DNA. Basically, if you are talking about a property that a string of bits may or may not have, a randomly generated one can, with the odds of it having it depending on the proportion of strings with that property compared to the total number of strings possible, and some details of the random generator (eg if it uses random words instead of random letters, it drastically increases the odds of making sentences at the cost of needing some initial information). But if you are talking about communication, it is a different story because randomness doesn't communicate anything, even if it seems to. But if the property is intrinsic to the string of data itself, it could obviously be generated as a result of a random process.

Because people who don't believe in evolution sometimes take a theory that says randomly generated bits can't be informative communication and take it to mean that evolution can't happen. Oh, so that little "functional" bit that you like to tack on whenever we make points about information that you don't like, is actually irrelevant? (Or rather, "functional" means whatever you want it to mean because in your description you define "functional" as things you consider "functional", without actually defining what that means).