MonDie

Why does their signal have to be radio waves? Wouldn't it be easier to distinguish the source of (and isolate) a high frequency signal? High frequency waves require more energy, thus the aliens might turn the signal on and off intermittently to save energy. Wouldn't their recipients find an intermittent signal extra conspicuous anyway?

Even something with DNA might use different amino acids. There are 140 natural amino acids, of which only 23 are used in "translational machinery". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-proteinogenic_amino_acids The question is whether we would recognize it as a (yet to be decoded) language. I bet any lifeform that can use mental representations to model the world will at least utilize coherence, realizing that a concept's predictive value is inversely related to its contradictoriness to other predictive concepts. Their linguistic implementation of true/false, however, could be absolute or fuzzy (truthlikeness). In addition, they'll probably utilize subjective vs. objective since communication between different perspectives requires translation between subjective (it looks red, it's in front of me, here and now, etc.) and objective: the apple (it) was emitting scattering 400-500nm light (red) at 03:42pm (now) in Austin, Texas (and here).

Maybe they're using a signal medium that's still unkown to us. They understood ???? waves before they understood electromagnetic radiation because ???? waves are what their sensory organs responded to.

fixed it

very rarely no idea decomposition "I've failed."

Positive and negative reps should appear separately. A couple years ago, I gave a post a negative just because I didn't think it deserved its positive rep. How cruel and unfair!

In 3rd world countries, people die from eating nothing. In 1st world countries, they die from eating crap.

back to your previous post highly unlikely = infrequent The non-idents will infrquently experience different levels of discrimination, but sometimes they will, and those instances may or may not significantly impact the results depending on how relevant that discrimination is to the dependent variable (DV). I didn't realize that the pasted text didn't mention E, unique environment. E is the rest of the difference that can't be accounted for by A or C. Any differences in environment between the non-idents will be unique environment. your most recent post I'm assuming a focus on some dependent variables (DVs) that can be measured along a one-dimensional axis. I'm not talking about an exploratory study to discover which traits are more genetic and which are more environmental; I'm talking about an attempt to precisely quantify the relative contributions of genetic and environment to a specific DV. This renders the experiment useless. If my goal is to gradually distinguish and quantify all contributing factors, starting with the broad categorizations of A, C and E, that still leaves the ACE quantities rather useless on their own. If my goal is to quantify the relative influence of genetics and environment, the problem is that my results could be skewed in either direction by non-random mating, depending on whether mates tend toward similarity in the DV (IQ, skin tone, etc.) or difference in the DV (Major Histocompatibility Complex, S&M, etc.)—I'm talking about difference relative to the average difference, of course. I suppose one could investigate the overall mating tendency to establish whether A is an upper limit or lower limit. For example, if mates tend to be similar in the DV, the researchers could say that the contribution of genetics is ≤ A. That is still terribly blunt. Perhaps a good control would be to (1) check that all parents are the biological parents, (2) survey the biological parents to measure how similar or disparate each couple is in the DV, and (3) make sure that each twin-pair sired by a similar couple is matched with a twin-pair sired by an equally disparate couple. btw If the researcher is surveying e.g. skin color to assure that it's controlled for, they might as well use the same-skinned and different-skinned non-ident pairs to quantify the relative contribution of skin-color. I'll call it the CASE model!

I thought he meant "bomb" as in "I bombed the test" (i.e. to give up and completely fail).

You're right, they could check that each non-identical pairing has roughly the same skin-tone, leveling out whatever wasn't leveled out by non-random mating. As described in my intelligence gene example, however, this would cause the skin-tone discrimination to be detected as C rather than A, which would still be misleading to the layman who will likely equate "common environment" with "family environment". Meh, similarity and difference are perfectly reciprocal (hence interchangeable) concepts. I don't think this answers the question. The non-idents won't be dissimilar in the relevant DNA sequence if the parents tend to have matching phenotypes and thus matching genotypes. The identical twin similarity due to genes will be fully attributed to A only if non-idents vary at least as often as you would expect by chance with random mating.

Stop whining, for I acknowledge thy better posts. I even once gavest though a +1.

Maybe should have gone in biology... @#$%! I posted this on another forum, but I'm hoping to get better responses here. I got my understanding of the ACE model from Wikipedia, so it might be over simplistic or just wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_study#Methods my understanding of the ACE model: Pasted from the other forum website for convenience. I wrote it. Dizygotes (fraternal twins) and monozygotes (identical twins) are used to calculate the relative contributions of "additive genetics" and "common environment". Here's how. The equation assumes that all twins share 100% common environment ( C), but dizygotes only share ~50% of their genetics (½A). The monozygotes (A+C) exhibit a higher rate of conformity than the dizygotes (½A+C), and the difference between conformity in monozygotes and conformity in dizygotes (½A) is multiplied by two and divided by the total conformity of monozygotes (A+C) to derive the relative contribution of genetics. Concerns: Is there a model that controls for discrimination in response to genetically determined traits (e.g. skin color)? One of my concerns is that the culture will induce certain environments in response to certain genetics. For example, you will probably experience more discrimination (enviornment) if you have naturally dark skin (genetic), which makes that extra discrimination an "A" genetic factor. My other concern is that non-random mating will cause certain genetic factors to be detected as "C" common environment. If your parents both have some hypothetical intelligence gene—hence their attraction to one another—then all your siblings will have this gene regardless of whether they're your twin, hence the gene will be confused for an effect of common environment. If you're confused, I explained these concerns in more detail in my third and final post in the link above.

... and every lifeform that sent a signal for all was thereafter enslaved, hence their signal died.

I'll try to propose something original. - Failing to integrate our urban environment with nature, resulting in population control (which will slow progress) either through mandate or through us compromising all our natural resources.

ninja edit!

Either I didn't get the point of Peter's post, or it was a lot of words with little content. This is how I read it. You don't use logic and reason to investigate religion, but you value it in relation to religion, which "demonstrates" the value of logic and reason in investigating religion. Your way of thinking is inconsistent, therefore you should use logic and reason to investigate religion rather than merely using it in relation to religion, like Sherlock Holmes.

Why do Christians who are not Roman Catholic have to accept the Bible's compilation of books as assembled by the early Roman Catholic Church? Can't they just be like "Meh, Kings. If I had assembled the Bible, there would be no such Kings."

I don't think I ever introduced myself. I'm just a college student who likes biology, human sexuality, probability theory, analytical philosophy, and online research.

Indeed. If time does need a cause, why does that cause need intelligence or mind?

They didn't want you corrupting the other youth. More broadly, belief only applies to ideas. If I kick a rock that is granite, then I kicked granite. I could however beleive in the rock while simultaneously believing that the rock is coal. Why? I kick real objects, whereas I believe in ideas. This raises some questions. If I believe in something that caused the universe and it just so happens that God caused the universe, do I believe in God? Where is the threshold—what attributes must my idea have? What about misattributions? Is it a sliding scale?

It's been so long since my last math course that I forgot how to multiply fractions. This made me realize that these problems are expressible as two multiplied series divided by a third series. I changed your n to m to avoid ambiguity within the series notation. m = tubes total k = tubes bad g = good tubes drawn b = bad tubes drawn [math]\frac{(\sum_{n=0}^{b-1}k-n)*(\sum_{n=0}^{g-1}m-k-n)}{\sum_{n=0}^{b+g-1}m-n}[/math] [math]\sum_{n=0}^{b-1}k-n[/math] The number of bad tubes (k) decreases by one each time a bad tube is pulled, which must be accounted for next time a bad tube is pulled. This will always be a numerator over the total number of tubes left unpulled. [math]\sum_{n=0}^{g-1}m-k-n[/math] Similarly, the number of good tubes (m-k) decreases by one each time a good tube is pulled, which must be accounted for next time a good tube is pulled. This will always be a numerator over the total number of tubes left unpulled. [math]\sum_{n=0}^{b+g-1}m-n[/math] Finally, the number of all tubes (m), your denominator, decreases by one each time any tube is pulled, which must be accounted for in the next pulling of a tube.

Some people come back out of faints or comas. They don't usually recall much.

You bombed that reply, Acme.

Forgive me for the narrowly responsive post. Fairness can depend on what is known by the person making the judgment, and also on what justifies the rule. In this instance for example, your principal doesn't know that you won't use the correction fluid to vandalize, so it would be unfair for the principal to make an exception. If they made an exception, the other students would wonder why you are trusted more than they are. However, if the staff were better at catching the vandals, then the principal shouldn't be suspicious of someone who was never caught vandalizing. Since vandalism prevention is what justifies the rule, they could not justify applying that rule to someone who doesn't vandalize. Hence the knowledge of who has vandalized changes what's fair. There could be other loopholes. For example, if you found a correction fluid that couldn't be used to vandalize, they couldn't justify applying the rule to your correction fluid. In that case, it would be unfair not to make an exception. edit replaced principle with principal

Fairness is often self-contradictory. Examples include: using the same grading standard regardless of Down's syndrome; charging equal money for all types of pills; disallowing boys kissing boys and girls kissing girls; or serving everybody hotdogs regardless of preference.