LucidDreamer

In the 50's people saw machines that were capable of calculating numbers more efficiently then we could and they thought artificial intelligence was just around the corner. 50 years later, we are no closer to realizing this. We can't even program artificial intelligence capable of mimicking the intelligence of an ant. Truth is that we don't even understand how intelligence works. We are still a long way away from figuring out how all the neurons, glial cells, and neurotransmitters work together to make creativity, memory, logic, etc. Until we understand how our own brains work we will not be able to create anything as intelligent as ourselves. Besides, by the time that we figure out how our brains really do work biochemistry and genetics will have advanced to the point that we will probably use organics to create intelligence instead of machines. I would put money on mankind genetically engineering a chimpanzee with our intelligence before programming a computer with it.

I'm no astronomer, but I believe the forces of the black holes would rip the water sphere into two halves that was then gobbled up by the two black holes. If you did have some sort of material in the shape of a sphere that could withstand being torn apart and the black holes that where spinning around it then I believe that the black holes would have to be traveling faster than the speed of light in order to get the sphere to travel the speed of light. Also, I think that two rotating, powerful forces on opposite sides of a immobile sphere would cause it to assume a disk shape. I have no idea what would happen if the sphere reached the speed of light. Sounds like an innovative thought, but still bet someone else has thought about it.

Interesting. I had to do a paradigm shift to understand where you are coming from. What I think you are suggesting is a sort of social evolution where each individual makes decisions based upon what is in the best interest of society and not what is in his own best interest. Also, the present society makes its decisions based upon what is in the best interest of the future society, eventually resulting in an improved society with a better quality of life. I like the sound of this "less resource-intensive, more society-oriented population" idea but I don't think that eugenics will bring about its creation or help maintain it after its been formed. Random sterilization wouldn't be needed in this situation because these socially-aloft people would be capable of controlling their population. With this future society in mind I imagined a young couple wanting to have a child. But it turns out that the husband has some form of genetic defect that will be passed down to his children. With the welfare of their society in mind they decide to adopt a child from a couple that has a very healthy child instead. Then I imagined that this other very healthy couple decided to spend their lives producing as many children as possible for the good of the society. Also, since the first couple cannot produce superior children solely because of the husband they decide to break up and have the wife remarry a more suitable mate. I continued on with this and paradox started to emerge. Since, all of the individuals are making sacrifices for the society none of them are content. Also, the present society is always making sacrifices for the good of the future society so it never achieves contentment either. I realized then that a comprise is needed between the individuals happiness and the happiness of the society. An individual should never have to make certain concessions for society as a whole. If the limit on the number of children each couple can have is needed to prevent overpopulation then so be it. This treats each person the same. But a society that encourages one individual to have children and discourages another has made a distinction between the value of their lives and their children. This reintroduces the problems with a resource-intensive society by simply making genes the commodity. The haves are no longer the ones with the cash; they are the ones with the superior genes. This inequality would disrupt the socially oriented population of the future as it would today's population.

On a similar thread the idea of using social forethought as a method of eugenics was proposed. I think that using social forethought as a method to weed out "inferior" genes in favor of more select ones is impractical and unethical, even if you could some how accomplish it without the use of force. However, I believe that using social forethought to prevent future overpopulation would be a very wise move. In addition to preventing possible overpopulation social forethought would improve the quality of life of the society that used it by preventing many unwanted pregnancies. The first step in social forethought is education. By providing early and continual education to our children we can forestall many problems that would be more difficult and costly to deal with later on. The second step in this social forethought program is providing cheap or free birth control to everyone. Many unwanted pregnancies occur because some people can not afford or do not have access to efficient birth control. A certain amount of both of these things are already being done in some countries but we should step up our efforts in countries where overpopulation could become a problem. Some will oppose increasing these programs because of religious beliefs, but religion should adapt to the changing world for the benefit of its believers. Social forethought should be the first program used before anything as drastic as random sterilization is considered. Furthermore, the parents should control any change to the genetics of our children. By allowing the state to dictate who should or should not reproduce or controlling the direction of evolution we are setting ourselves up for a genetically elite-controlled society with a permanent caste system. A democracy where everyone is treated equal and each individual is given the ability to succeed based upon his abilities creates a content and successful society. We have made great progress in creating this society and we should not allow this progress to be eroded. Any society that practices eugenics has deemed one individual to be more important than another and one life more important than another. Any society that practices random sterilization has diminished the value of life as a whole. After all, any social program’s purpose is to ensure the existence and quality of life of its people. It’s the qualities of compassion, altruism, and tolerance that define our humanity and allow us to live a relatively harmonious existence. We should strive to make all of our decisions with humanity in mind or we will not survive.

I didn't really choose mine based upon any set of criteria; it was just a choice of two scientists that made an impact on me. I'm into biochemistry so Linus Pauling was an easy choice for me because of his early work in chemistry and his amazing contributions in biochem. His work with proteins and his many contributions in my field have influenced me and anyone else interested in the chemistry of living things. I chose Leonardo Da Vinchi because he was simply one of the most brilliant men who ever lived. He was studying and uncovering the secrets of life at a time when man was almost completely in the dark when it came to understanding how life worked.

Have you tried sound alarms, motion detecting lights, fake cameras, and warning signs that say "violaters will be shot". It might take a little cash to solve this problem, but if you all pitch in it won't be that bad.

A perpetual motion machine is pretty much a concept designed to never work based on our present understanding of physics. If you ever designed a machine that ran for almost forever people would argue that your just introducing outside energy and therefore you have not created a perpetual motion machine.

Of course, the sooner the better. Certain abilities are learned much more easily as a child. There is actually a pruning of your brain at certain ages where your brain sheds brain cells it doesn't use much. The theory goes something to the effect that your brain sheds these neurons to make the areas that you do use more efficient. But I don't think your brain ever has to stop developing, disregarding disease. You can radically improve your intelligence with enough hard work. If you are really dedicated to improving your intelligence there are lots of things you can do. Make your brain developing program part of your daily routine, kind of like working out, but for your brain. Keep a journal to track your progress. Here are some suggestions for increasing your intelligence: 1) Practice building your vocabulary. One of the ways that we think is verbal-if you have a larger vocabulary you are a better verbal thinker. 2) Learn Mnemonic systems. Get a book like "Mega Memory" from Kevin Trodou and incorporate its system into your studies. 3) Buy or rent a book on mind puzzles and work on few each day. 4) Learn to play an instrument. Music involves patterns; research has shown a strong correlation between music and math skills 5) Learn another language. Each language has its own particular nuances. Every culture thinks a little bit differently about their world and by learning their language you learn another way of thinking. 6) Practice using your mental eye. Work on using your visualization skills until you can vividly produce any image 7) Carry a notebook around where you can record your ideas. Work on generating as many ideas as you can about a variety of subjects. Whenever you find a problem try to generate several ideas to come up with a solution.

I don't know of any courses you can take to improve your IQ as an adult, probably because having a high IQ is not very useful. However SAT scores are extremely important to high school students looking to go to college in the U.S. For many years businesses have been offering courses to improve SAT scores. For example, the Princeton review says: "Our students' scores improve an average of 140 points. The top 25 percent improve by 250 points or more. Your score is guaranteed to jump at least 100 points." 250 points out of 1600 is a significant raise. These courses work and if a student was even more diligent he could begin practicing even earlier, and score even higher. So what? Well, a sat test is just a form of IQ test. In fact, I believe Mensa use to take sat scores for their membership requirements. Here is more proof that SAT scores correlate with IQ scores: http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=sat+scores+iq&ei=UTF-8&fr=FP-tab-web-t&cop=mss&tab=

I'm assuming that the purpose behind the random sterilization/Eugenics program is to improve the quality of life of the society. If it weren’t' date=' what would be the point? Lets say you separate society into an elite group with all the wealth and luxuries of life and a worker class that lives in poverty and despair. While the quality of life for that elite group, composed of a small portion of the population has improved the quality of life for the vast majority has decreased. Thus, the whole purpose of instituting the eugenics program in the first place has been undermined. Furthermore, it is generally the populations that live in poverty that produce all the children that lead to overpopulation. By enlarging poor class you are indirectly creating the very thing you are trying to prevent.

Modified RNA and RNA derivatives can perform certain chemical functions but beyond that I have no idea how early cells replicated. If I did I would have already picked up my Nobel Prize.

hmm, that’s not what I was trying to say. I was trying to say that there is no use in applying cell theory to early proto-cells because that theory was intended for modern cells. However, I suggested that early cells could have been pieces of RNA (that’s for admiral ju) capable of reproducing within micelles. This organism would qualify for all of the cell theory principles. Except of course for the first cell ever which would not qualify under the 3rd requirement.

Pleiades, I find a couple of things wrong with your argument. First of all what your suggesting is a state-controlled Eugenics program. Any state that controls the fate of its people’s progeny has absolute control. Furthermore, you are suggesting that the people be segregated by gene superiority. This would ultimately result in an elite class with absolute control. History has shown that oligarchy’s do not benefit the society as a whole, but rather divide society into classes that lead drastically different lives. Your elite class would posses all of the power and wealth while the unfortunate masses toiled to support them. There would be no class mobilization because your elite class would have absolute power with their control over the genome. Eventually there would not even be any class struggle because the genes that lead to resistance would be bred out of the worker class. As a side note it seems what that you and skye are talking about is mate selection and hierarchial sexual dominance. Most species use mate selection and hierarchial sexual dominance is found in several species as well. Baboons for example.

Btw I didn't handpick those articles, purely random.

Here is a link on the food preference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=8300990 compulsive disorder: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15184240 sexual behavior: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15146145 behavior problems: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15123494 smoking: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=15053857 intelligence: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14739695 pyschopathy: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14658743 I have to say I'm surprised. All of these studies indicate genetic influences. Most of them were studies comparing monozygotic to dizygotic though and not separations of identicals at birth. I saw a documentary once about twins who were separated at birth and they did have a lot of similarities.

Sayonara, only the first paragraph was addressed to you, the second was addressing the issues of the thread. I know that the original poster did not advocate any form of coercion but how in the world are you going to accomplish social eugenics without it. Excuse me sir, we feel that you, being a stupid ugly person, should not reproduce for the good of mankind. That’s ok with you isn't it?

"Cells are the basic units of life. They are the building blocks of all organisms, from bacteria to animals. Cells are thought to be the units for life. This is stated in the cell theory. The cell theory is as follows: 1. All living things are composed of one or more cells. 2. Cells are organisms' basic units of structure and function. 3. Cells come only from existing cells." Cell theory only applies to life today. Saying that early life and proto-cells don't adhere to the principles of cell theory is like saying early mammal ancestors don't meet the qualifications of mammals--such as warm-blood, mammary glands, fur, etc. Of course mammal ancestors don't meet the qualifications. Before there were mammals there were no mammals. Before there were modern cells that meet the qualifications of cell theory there were proto cells that acquired the modern characteristics as they evolved.

The principle is similar but the method differs. I am also not advocating any form of coercion, sterilization, or elitism. I'm sure many social problems like elitism could potentially pose a problem, but I think that the potential benefits cannot be ignored. It is very difficult to create cures for the host of diseases that plaque our species. Most of modern medicine results in mediocre treatments at best. It would be much easier to remove the genes that cause these diseases. You may call this unethical but I find it no less ethical than allowing millions to suffer and die when it could be prevented. You may warn against tampering with nature but man has been tampering with nature in a limited way for thousands of years. I think genetic engineering is inevitable and we should concentrate on determining how to do it, taking ethics and potential undesirable consequences into consideration.

Part of what separates us from the animals is our compassion- without it we would truly be no better than animals

Yes. http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/miller_urey_experiment.html http://spot.colorado.edu/~lestera/2_24notes.html http://www.google.com/search?as_q=Miller-Urey+repeated&num=10&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=.edu&safe=images I had trouble finding information about this at first, but then I went to google advanced search and limited my query to sites that ended in .edu. Otherwise you get a lot of creationist sites. You may notice that there are certain creationist "hot spots", certain scientific experiments or theories that creationist tend to revolve around when making their arguments. These are usually experiments or theories that stirred up the Christian communities when they were announced and creationist felt like they needed to respond to them. Not all of these subjects they talk about are particularly important to the theory of evolution. Creationist tend to concentrate on these particular experiments because there is lots of creationist information on it and it gives them a pre-made argument. Most of creationism revolves around pointing out the flaws in the theory of evolution and there are plenty to pick on. The thing is science is messy; its filled with hoaxes, mistakes, miscalculations, contaminates, and errors because scientist are human. However, it’s still a good theory because even taking into account the mistakes the evidence is overwhelming. If you ask a creationist to come up with theories to explain the way the world is you will get one of two things, very bad science or because that’s the way God made it. It's easy to pick apart the bad science but it’s hard to argue with God's prerogative. When it comes down to it there are only two theories, creationism or Evolution-there are of course lots of modifications on both like aliens and different kinds of evolution. But, if your in a room and look around to take stock of what’s in the room either it was there when you got there or someone brought it in. Something was either created outright all at once or it evolved. When we take account all of the evidence it clearly indicates that it evolved.

In the traditional meaning of the word Eugenics usually refers to a social program designed to eliminate the propagation of "bad" genes and encourage the propagation of "good" genes. I think any sort of social Eugenics is unethical and impractical. If your going to force people to follow it its obviously unethical and if you ask people to follow it they are going to ignore you. People already, in a roundabout way, choose the best mating partners they can get. Asking people that you feel are unfit to remove themselves from the gene pool is ridiculous and wrong. Genetic engineering is a different story. It's easy to just bash genetic engineering by mentioning all the horrible things that could go wrong. Everyone seems to be just focusing on the negatives of it and no one is talking about the almost unlimited benefits. Genetic Engineering could improve the world more than any other technology. It could increase the life span to hundreds maybe thousands of years. It could eliminate almost all disease. It could create a world full of Einsteins, Newtons, and Da Vincis. People’s main argument against it is that it would reduce the gene pool and that the lack of biodiversity could be catastrophic. That's a valid argument and it means we should move into it very carefully. It’s not like the generations that are working on genetic engineering are not going to anticipate the problems. I imagine that very soon individual genomes are going to be collected and placed in libraries. If they ever need to reintroduce certain genes they will have them ready.

"Micelles form from amphipathc lipids that position the hydrophobic tails in the center of the lipid aggregations with the polar head groups facing outward" Micelles form spontaneously when amphipathic lipids are placed in water. It has been suggested that the first cell was just a piece of DNA or RNA, capable of reproducing, contained within a micelle. Because they lack fossil records they really have no idea what life was life before the earliest found prokaryotes.

I think a certain amount of Eugenics is inevitable, not the elimination of "bad" genes through sterilization but through the introduction of genetic engineering. Some parents will do virtually anything to ensure that their children succeed, including genetic engineering. Now that the human genome has been mapped, over the next few decades we will learn what these genes code for. Soon the ability to choose sperm/egg combinations that are "superior" to others will be available (like the movie Gatica). Some parents will choose to go this route, hoping to ensure success for their children. As the technology gets better these children will begin displaying "superior" abilities. Everyone else will be left with the choice of conceiving children that are at potential disadvantage or participating as well.

I opened mine up and it says stainless steel. Its one of those cheapies your talking about. Don't know about the other brands.

Is it that the universe is infinite and expanding or that the universe is infinite and the matter is expanding within it?