Greg H.

So if I understand what you're saying, it's basically that "Things are so complex, that there must be some being (supernatural or not) equally as complex to explain why it's so complex." This is exactly the part of these kinds of discussions I have a problem with. Why do we have to invoke the presence of some superior being just because something looks 'too complicated'? I'm not saying there is, or there is not, but why do we have to assume it's true just because there are things we don't yet understand? (And if I am misunderstanding your point, please don't hesitate to let me know.)

First, redefining terms because you want to is a good way to make people not take you seriously. Levity in no way means lift, despite your tossing that into the OP. Second, read: Incorrect Lift Theory

The difference being the sources we've given you hold up to serious scrutiny. We don't dismiss anything because we think we know. We do dismiss things because they don't fit the evidence combined with the principle of Occam's razor. I could explain friction with microscopic demons grabbing onto things to keep them from moving, but it fails both those principles. Of course we don't know what's true and what isn't, for ancient history. None of us were there. We can only go by the evidence we find, and so far there's nothing to suggest that Earth has ever been visited by aliens. That evidence is the "facts" you think don't exist, and until evidence comes to light that involves something out of place for humans of the kind, there's really no need to invoke an outside agency to explain it.

It's not necessarily ridiculous, but it's certainly a little arrogant, and it's not good science to presuppose conclusions without evidence. Which is exactly the problem with the ancient alien proposal - there's no hard evidence. If you had a 5,000 year old building made with titanium, now we have something to talk about since, as far as we know, humans did not even know about titanium until the 18th century, and we could not produce it in a pure form until the early 20th. (FYI, this is one of the ways art historians can date paintings - they look for titanium oxide in the white paint). Let's consider the problems with this idea: 1. Some alien culture discovered a method of interstellar travel that involved: a way of reaching our solar system from another (a journey of at least 4 light years) a method of shielding the crew from cosmic radiation (or a crew immune to its effects) a method of protecting the ship from cosmic debris a method of keeping the crew alive for the duration of the journey. 2. This alien culture had nothing better to do with our planet than pop down and build monuments to themselves. No mass extraction of resources, no colonization. 3. They managed to do all this without leaving behind more than anecdotal evidence about the whole thing. No signs of heavy construction equipment, no landing zones. (I mean if God descended from on high in your back yard, don't you think you'd kind of mark that spot and keep an eye on it in case He came back?). As for the star child skull: (from http://en.wikipedia...._skull#Analysis)

People have been cutting compound miter corners for centuries with nothing more than a saw. It's not hard to do, nor it is particularly tricky to learn. You don't need a compound miter saw or a laser, just a hand saw and some practice will suffice.

You do realize this made absolutely no sense at all, right? And why are you on about dogma again?

I didn't say that there was no other source, just that you don't have to pay for that source. It is a way of extracting some 'free' energy from under ground. That doesn't make it an over unity device. It just makes it cheaper to operate.

Human beings are the most intelligent and perfect beings on the planet? By what unbiased, objective standard? As I highly doubt your initial premise is correct, I'm finding your conclusions based on that premise to be less than convincing. By what stretch of the imagination does this have anything to with the topic at hand? Furthermore, I can explain anything by saying "Goddidit". That doesn't actually answer the question, it just moves the goal posts. So you're saying it's something that they learn. If they have to learn it, how is it innate? This is yet more of your obfuscation of answers to push forward your pet theories concerning why science is wrong is religion is right. I was hoping you had moved past your earlier poor arguments.

I'm familiar with Descartes and Hume's work. I disagree with the idea that ideas of morality are innate. If they were innate, children would know it was wrong to take other people's toys without asking (stealing is wrong), that you shouldn't hurt other people (violence is wrong), and that you should always tell the truth (lying is wrong). Nothing I have seen convinces me that there is a universal idea of right and wrong. We learn those concepts from our parents (or guardians) directly, and from our society more broadly.

No, because the total amount of energy in (electricity + heat) is greater than the amount out (heat). You can't just ignore one of the energy inputs into the system and say it generates more energy than it consumes.

I'll ask it again, since you glossed right over it: What makes the knowledge of right and wrong innate? Especially since different cultures have different ideas of what is right and what is wrong.

If knowledge of right and wrong is innate, why do children seem to have such a hard time grasping it?

There is a significant difference between being a slave to dogma, and failing to grasp the basic laws of nature.

The TI-92 could do this as well, IIRC. You can get an emulator for that from here: http://www.ticalc.org/basics/calculators/ti-92.html

This is actually an interesting topic (the idea of "What year is it really?"). I remember the first day of my freshman philosophy class quite vividly. The instructor came in, picked up the text book and said, "What color is this book?" To which all forty (or so) of us responded unwaveringly, "Blue!". Then he asked, "Why?" I admit it, I was stumped for a while. It took me a long time to grasp that some of the things we take for granted (such as the names of colors, or what year it is) are simply societal agreements to make communicating easier. If we all agree the year is 2012 AD, then we can behave as if it is 2012 AD, regardless of how much time has actually elapsed since the event marking the beginning of that count.

Of all the programming languages I have worked with, I like working with Java the best. Of course, I also don't do interface design in it, so that might change my mind.

One other thing that I read years ago, and I will humbly apologize that I can't find the source anymore to quote it directly, is that our calendar (the once used by the Western world at least) is off by as much as 7 years one way or the other due to accuracy issues during the dark and middle ages. So whenever I see these people freaking out about the end of the world in 2012, I just smile and think "But it's already 2019."

But dark matter does exist! (I'm sorry, I had to do that.) Holly, You might try searching Google Scholar for some references. You won't get to see all of them (some of them will be locked behind subscription sites) but you should find something you can use. I did a quick search for "against dark matter", and came up with some hits such as Evidence against disappation-less dark matter It's only a letter to the magazine Nature, but the chap who wrote it is a professor of astronomy from UC Berkley, so at least he's not a barking loon. Google scholar is available at http://scholar.google.com Hope that helps.

Obfuscating your code is trivial, you can download scripts that will handle it (or write your own, if you feel like it), but it's like only locking your front door.

Essentially, you would have to find and sterilize all bald men, and all of their descendants, on an ongoing basis, for generations. The problem then becomes - what else did you just select out of the genome without meaning to?

Respectfully, I have to disagree with reason #2. Evil is not a factor in determining effectiveness. While I agree it's wrong, nature doesn't share our idea of ethics. As CP said, selective breeding will work on humans, even if it happens to be morally reprehensible and enforced selective breeding.

The first episode of The Amazing Race aired on Sept 5, 2001 according to IMDB. You're either remembering wrong or it was a different show with a similar name and theme. These things happen. Dragging the thread back on topic, most likely the version of Windows 7 that you saw was just an earlier version of Windows rebranded with a different name for the Asian market. Companies do this all the time. It's not really that exciting.

So that leads me to ask a question: If the earth was larger in diameter (yielding a larger volume of matter) but the mass remained the same, what would happen to the surface gravity? My thinking is that it should go down, right? If that is so, then is it true to say that an object's gravitational influence is related to the density of that object in some fashion? --- Edit Ok, so a little research and some math later, and it turns out I'm right. Assuming the mass stays constant, the surface gravity increases as the radius of the object decreases. [math] g = \frac{Gm}{r^2} [/math] Where G = gravitational constant, m = mass of the object, and r = radius of the object. From Surface Gravity