Glider

I think it's more because people have a need to believe in or feel they belong to something greater than themselves (all looking for a banner under which to march). They develop a set of beliefs, but having done so without any evidence, or even (in some cases) sound logic, feel those beliefs threatened when irritating things like evidence contradicts them. Having no evidence or logical argument with which to defend themselves (here is the rub, most people find it difficult to keep separate their beliefs from 'themselves'; a threat to a belief is most often felt as a personal attack), they will resort to whatever means are left to them. Putting their fingers in their ears and going "Lallalalala!" usually. Sometimes their defence will be to attack back. Without evidece or logic, they will use whatever else is to hand. There is a small part in most people that, having found a banner under which to march, also feels an attraction to the idea of dying for it. PS Science doesn't really prove what is actual or true, nor does it attempt to. Science is a method and it's function is simply to explain what is actual (observable). For example, there's no point in trying to prove gravity, but there is in trying to explain it.

I think he was wrong anyway. People will try to destroy what they fear (as history shows) but they will defend what they love.

It always confuses me when people use this as a backup to their arguments *easily confused*. How do you know what other people are thinking?

Coke is easy to get. You should be able to find it at a large DIY store or just google for suppliers. Anywhere that deals with the (re)installation of period fireplaces and such should also be able to source it for you.

Keep a weather eye on yer tongue there matey or you'll be marryin' the gunner's daughter! Me bowline's as sound as anyone's and I can splice with the best of 'em..Arrr. Up to the gunnels with such bilge I am an' I'll take no more!

1) Yes. Because homosexuality harms no-one and legislating against homosexuals won't make them not homosexual, it would simply be an attempt to suppress their behaviour which, as it is as much a part of them as skin colour is to different races, and as harmless, it would be stupid and pointless to make it illegal, nor is there any reason to try. 2) Yes, because You can't make people not believe something by making it illegal. The caveat here would be that whilst people have the right to believe, people who choose not to believe have an equal right. So, I'd let people believe what they chose, until their beliefs (or subsequent behaviours) began to impinge the (equal) rights of others to believe something else. A kind of "your right to swing your fist ends where somebody else's face begins" thing. I think the primary principle would be equality. At the moment, I think we're too hung up on 'rights'. Everybody thinks they have a 'right' to this, that and the other. The focus is so narrow that people have lost sight of the fact that their right to anything depends upon the resonsibility of those around them. The focus on 'rights' has grown so narrow that it's coming to the state where a person's 'right' to have something blinds them to another person's 'right' not to be robbed of that thing. A person's 'right' to believe a thing blinds them to the 'right' of the person next to them to believe something else. So, item one on my country's constitution would be "What's sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander". Here, you have the right to do what you like (concomitant with the responsibility to pay for it), but that right applies to everybody equally. If the exercise of your right impinges upon the same right of anybody else, the penalties will be swift and harsh.

There isn't really such a thing as a 'threshold of pain', but the victim would probably go into shock sure enough. If the shock didn't kill the victim, then it could take a couple of days to die. Death was usually by asphyxiation as hanging by the arms (nailed or tied) restricts breathing. As an act of mercy (or just to shorten the waiting around), the crucifiers would often use hammers to break the shins of the crucified to stop them supporting their weight with their feet. This would lead to death in hours instead of days. The 'Nazarine' wasn't the only one to be crucified. The Romans crucified hundreds of thousands.

Thank you. 'Indoctrination', that's the word I was looking for (couldn't think of it before ). In the UK, the only time you'd have to make any such pledge is when you join the military, then you have to take an oath to protect the reigning sovereign, his or her heirs and so-on. At least by then, you are generally old enough to have some grasp of the meaning and implications of what you are saying though. To get kids to recite it in schools, I dunno. Feels a bit not-quite-right. Didn't they have similar 'pledgings' every morning in schools and workplaces in China and the Soviet Union?

You're welcome

Nope, I mean neuron. For example, the sensory path is a three neuron system (generally, but not always). So, you have a single neuron from the sense organ (say a touch receptor in the skin of the sole of your foot), this projects up and synapses in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord with an ascending spinothalamic neuron (another single neuron) which synapses in the thalamus with another projection neuron which extends from the thalamus to the appropriate area of the primary sensory cortex. The first neuron, from the sense organ to the dorsal horn can be over a metre long. The second; the spinothalamic projection neuron, can be around 45cm long. In any event, the term Nerve refers to a collection of nerve fibres (the axons of single neurons), bound together forming fascicles. Many fascicles are bound together to form nerves. So, a nerve is really just a bundle of bundles of individual axons. In general, neurons tend not to synapse within nerves, so the individual neurons (or axons) are, in general, as long as the nerve. However, Mokele makes a good point. Long doesn't necessarily mean big. The squid giant axon is bloody huge by comparison to neurons in other species.

I think anything that could insulate the core of your forge would work. I don't know whether or not coal would work. It'd probably be more smoky and I think it burns at alower temperature and produces more ash. Coke or charcoal would work. Charcoal was used for the same purpose in the iron age, they made pretty good laminate swords back then too. It burns at a very high temperature, particuarly with bellows and produces little ash and not much smoke and fumes. You should be able to get coke and/or charcoal at any proper ironmongers or DIY place. Neither costs that much in the volumes you want. The temps charcoal burns at with bellows is high enough to melt copper and tin in a suitable crucible. They've been doing that since the bronze age.

The word is grafting and the lump is a callus. Technically, it's grafting when done artificially, i.e. by a person. Certain types of apple tree have been developed that produce really nice apples, but the tree itself doesn't do well on its own roots, so these cultivars (cultivated variants) are usually grafted to the rootstock of more vigorous apple trees when they are seedlings. Another example is where a tree has grown a bit long in the trunk and you want it to have branches lower down. You can take a shoot from higher up the tree and heel graft it to the trunk exactly where you want it. In bonsai, you can use thread grafting to place branches precisely where you want them. You allow a shoot to grow freely so it forms a long whip, then you drill a hole through the trunk exactly where you want your new branch and in early spring, you thread the whip through the hole and 'glue' it in place using grafting wax. As the whip grows and expands, it begins to swell where it is constricted. Also, the wound in the trunk begins to form a callus as the cambium begins to close the wound. Eventually the callus formed by the trunk and that formed by the constricted whip grow into one another and graft together. You can then cut away the whip at the other side. Basically, if two areas of the same (or related) trees rub against each other to a point that the cambium layer (the living, growing part of a tree) in each limb is exposed, then the swelling callus caused by the healing of each branch (as long as they are held together), will merge and grow into one as the cambium layer covers the entire wound and lays down more wood, resulting in their healing together, or grafting.

Maybe it's just me and my cynicism, but I don't really see 'management' as 'preservation'. I really think the only way humans can preserve a thing is to stay the hell away from it. It always surprises me how well things managed themselves (before us), compared to our contemporary attemts to manage them, which always seems to result in somebody getting rich and a new MacBurger joint going up between the staff car park and the tourist coach park.

You don't see that 'doing something with it' and 'preserving it' are mutually exclusive? You can't preserve it and 'do something' with it.

Farriers using standard forges use a bank of fire bricks to focus the heat sufficiently to heat different grades of metal so that they can be beaten together (welding a laminate, as when making a sword). Instead of having an open bed of glowing coke, they rake the coke into a mound in the centre and bank up the sides with the fire bricks to keep the heat in and use a fan which results in enough heat to take iron and steel to white heat.

His last sentence shows your problem in arguing with your friend. You can't argue 'science' sensibly with a person who does not understand science. Science cannot prove the nonexistence of a thing. The function of science is only to explain. We observe phenomena and try to explain them. Science doesn't create anything, nor does it try to prove anything (because it's usually not possible). We test hypotheses and either accept them (which doesn't mean they've been proven, just that they haven't been disproven), or reject them, which means they've been disproven. Facts cannot be proven, we can only continue to accept the hypothesis; i.e. generate more evidence in support of it. That doesn't 'prove' it, that just makes it acceptable. Therefore there really is no such thing as the absence of doubt and scientists accept that. If you take a 'fact' such as gravity, then you must know that gravity itself is not a function of science. The effects of gravity are simply observable phenomena and the function of science is to try to explain these effects through a formalised process of hypothesis testing. Science is not a 'thing', it is a method. Scientific method is set up to disprove. To test a hypothesis means to try to disprove it. Hypotheses by definition are just refutable statements. Statements such as "There is no God" for example, are not refutable and therefore not testable. You cannot test for the nonexistence of a thing using scientific method, so science cannot 'prove' its own nonexistence.

Then drink something else.

Personally, I wouldn't bother. You're unlikely to change his beliefs and he won't change yours, so what's the point? Go and have a beer.

I agree, I don't think appearance is that good an indicator of a person's ability and I try to look beyond it. However, I wouldn't really want to bet a good job on whether or not the guy sitting behind the desk will try to do the same. Sometimes, you just have to jump through the hoops. Once you have the job however...

On the other hand, if anybody here does want a crack at winning $25,000....

A single neurone in a human can be over a metre long. It's probably a lot longer in an elephant, and even longer in a blue whale.

No, that's reliability.

I don't know about chemistry, but I can tell you the difference between the two terms. Precision relates to the resolution of a measure. For example, a thermometer graded at 10 degree intervals is less precise than one graded at one degree intervals, which in turn is less precise than one graded in 0.5 degree intervals (and so-on) although they all may be accurate. Accuracy relates to the degree to which a measure reflects the true magnitude of that which it is measuring. For example, a thermometer placed in a beaker of water at exactly 30 degrees C but which reads 20 degrees C is not showing the true magnitude of what it is measuring and so is inaccurate. A measure can be precise, but still inaccurate. A thermometer in the same beaker which reads 20.62745 degrees C is precise, but inaccurate. A measure can be accurate but imprecise. A thermometer graded in 10 degree intervals placed in the same beaker may show something like 'between 25 and 35 degrees C'. This is accurate, but imprecise. Another thermometer placed in the same beaker and reads 30.0000 degrees C is both accurate and precise. A thermometer placed in the same beaker but which reads 'Thursday' is invalid.

Do you think that this thread gains credibility by being in this forum? If you believe it would lose credibility simply be being moved, then surely its credibility is questionable to begin with. If the topic is sound, surely it will withstand the criticism of others? What real psychological phenomenon is being discussed? I see a lot of personal anecdotes, self-disclosure, angst and agonising (I don't mean this unkindly) but I don't see any clear definition of the phenomenon itself, nor do I see any evidence of psychology since Mokele and Martin posted (Nos 5 & 6). I'm not sure whether it's the term 'empathy' people don't understand, or the term 'psychology', but reading this thread, I am prepared to say that it does not belong in this forum. However, as I say, it is a popular thread and I wouldn't like to close it, but I am happy to move it to general discussion.