Prometheus

Transcendental numbers.

I think learning by play is the way to go: something like Machi Koro - resource (money) optimisation, simple risk vs benefit decisions, investing and planning for the future and cardboard coins. Played it with 8 year olds before, they were able to understand some of their more stupid mistakes by themselves. 5 might be too young but better than giving them an abstract list. I'm sure there are simpler games out there suitable for 5 year olds which still cover some very basic concepts.

I'm sure there are great many factors that go into it - the link i provided goes into quite a lot of them and cites many supporting studies.

Home vs away support has been thoroughly studied in football, and has been found to be one of the single biggest predictors of victory (the teams are of roughly equal physical ability). It is speculated this is due to performing in front of a supporting crowd. But why 'just' placebo? Psychological condition has a profound impact on all our lives - how we think influences our bodies, not so surprising now we know that the mind is a manifestation of the physical, not something separate or imposed upon it. Also found this website which seems thorough. Among other things it cites studies which suggest that the home crowd can effect refereeing decisions. Anecdotally, any fan of of English football knows it's virtually impossible to get a penalty at Old Trafford.

Very much depends on the school of Buddhism, some having very detailed cosmologies describing it, others barely mention it. I believe Tibetan Buddhism is one of the former. Literally translated karma just means action or work. Motivation/intention is important in Buddhist karma, killing for food and killing for fun would be different. Related aside: most Buddhism does not require vegetarianism and the Buddha is reported to have died of pork poisoning.

Isn't human society a multi-species society? We support many kinds of livestock and have promoted their spread across the globe to a much greater extent than they would naturally attain. We employ dogs for a variety of rolls, even bestowing awards upon them for acts of valour, or just keep them as companions. We keep cats, because... Why do we keep cats? Or do they keep us?

Is the purpose to extrapolate beyond the collected distance range? If so i wouldn't recommend it - from the statistics alone you cannot guarantee that the data will behave in the same way in the unobserved range as in the observed range - unless you have good theoretical reason to suspect so. Can you afford at least one full discharge to collect such data? A quick check to see if this is the case is the check the residuals of whatever model you fit - if the residuals are are getting wider (or narrower) then your model may not be ideal. Sorry, don't know any suitable free software. Fancy learning something like R?

Or there is a far less role of chance in the laws of physics than some suspect. Or the 'pin' was placed into phase space a great many time. It took me literally 2 seconds to come up with these alternatives to your only possible explanation. Why so fast to go to 'god did it'?

It'll keep you busy for sure. There are 4 considerations for sample size calculations, the first two are difference in means between groups and variances (standard deviations) of groups. Typically the bigger the difference between means and the smaller the variance the less samples you need. There is very little you can do about these - well designed/controlled experiments might reduce the variance a bit. The next two you can choose an acceptable level: they are your probability of seeing a difference in means (just by sheer luck) when really there is no difference and seeing no difference in means when really there is. (These are known as type 1 and 2 statistical errors). They are related so increasing one reduces the other so we seek an acceptable balance - what's worse, saying there is a difference when there isn't or saying there isn't when there is? Typically in biology and medicine we say an acceptable probability of a type 1 error is 0.05 and of a type 2 error 0.2 (usually stated as having a 'power of 80%). This means that if you repeat an experiment which you know has no difference in means 20 times, you can expect 1 experiment to (erroneously) say there is a difference in means. Hope that makes sense: in a rush.

But what exactly is 'good statistics'. Are you just going to collect data until you see results that you like? Flip a coin enough times and you will get ridiculous runs of heads which the human mind will determine can't be down to luck. You will then discard the results of the all the initial 'failed' results because they weren't to your liking - except you will say something changed in the experiment - maybe the person flipping coins was standing on one leg when the run began, so that's what you have to do. Except, of course, it was just luck and standing on one leg has nothing to do with it. Easy to see with such a contrived example, but then extend that to real world experiments, add in an emotional investment and all of a sudden you can interpret your results anyway you like. It's pareidolia for data: determine your statistical methodology as rigorously as your experimental methodology otherwise you'll be seeing anything you want.

Also need to start thinking about what statistical tests you are going to use and not do the noob biologist thing of designing an experiment, collecting the results then going to a statistician. Area of mould would be amenable to ANOVA if we treat it as a continuous variable (or non-parametric equivalent if model assumptions not met ). But does the area of mould depend on any way on the area of the grain of rice? If so we might consider ANCOVA and treat rice area as a covariate. Are you going to analyse the results in a longitudinal fashion? If so could use repeated measures ANOVA or maybe MANOVA. Types of organisms found would also probably best be measured as a continuous variable but the question would be how to count them accurately - assuming you don't try to count the quantity of every single organism. The data will likely be poisson distributed so maybe poisson regression: might have to wait to see the data to decide what's best here. How is smell quantified? If it is subjective might look into likert scale type stuff, but is an electronic nose possible? What is said to be causing the smell - just the bacteria present? If so we have already covered that. If something else is something like mass spec an option? If you don't know what effect size then let practical decisions guide a pilot study. Is setting up 100 samples per treatment much harder than setting up 10 - presumably it's just an issue of space and resources. Or is there an idea of the 'love' effect being diluted if there are too many plants?

Not at all area, but my guess would be that the sun just puts out much more radiation in the visible wavelengths than higher energy wavelengths such that any gain in more energy from a photon is offset by having far fewer photons.

Just letting you know how you come across to me since it seemed to concern you. Do what you will with the observation.

Khan academy is very good, you should be able to find his level here. This guy is a good teacher, but the format might be too passive for your son if he's already getting good tuition and just wants to explore by himself. This youtube channel might be a bit much, but i recommend it not to learn any technical details, but just to realise there are different ways in which to visualise and understand maths. Get him to teach you maths starting from a level you are comfortable with. Try to learn it, but it matters less that you learn more that he teaches. Teaching is a great way to learn.

I gave you one of the neg reps: not for any content but for laughing down at what i thought was a perfectly reasonable question (about a toaster) and what i perceive as a holier than thou attitude very common in spiritual/religious communities despite them usually claiming to know better. However, i wouldn't want to stop dialogue between people because of my actions.

I agreed with this one: still an OK book, just overrated. The one and half books i read of Hemingway's. Can't remember the titles or stories; one occurred somewhere in the Florida Keys. The only thing i really remember is that every other sentence read like 'look at me, how good am I at writing, am I the best or what...' Still haven't read it but it's on my list. Hope it doesn't disappoint. It's a good book: the story of Jesus in particular is fantastic. But yeah, fans of the book are a little over zealous and rate it a bit too much. A recent one that surprised me, though not a classic, was It by Stephen King: was so bored by it couldn't bring myself to finish. Normally like his stories. (Do any of his novels pass as classics? The Shining?)

Anyone seen the new Avengers? I won't see it, the one and a half previous Avengers movies i saw were awful. The new Star Trek reboots too: just saw the first one to know it wasn't for me. No one needs to see trailers for these films do they - we all know what we're getting from the product. Same for Star Wars but unfortunately it is the epitome of all the worst aspects of capitalism: a product designed purely to make money. I have to take my nephew to see it because it's become a ritual we do due a thoroughly successful advertising campaign. I agree but for different reasons: it is the most alien book i have ever read - the culture, the people and the events are so far removed from anything i have experienced that i didn't even have a point of reference to start from. Obviously a good author though

So does god. Oh, except god has existed forever or popped out of nothing, despite believers insisting this can't be true of the universe. Any reason to believe this is true of god but not the universe except magic?

I agree, but that's the problem with multiple choice questions. All could be argued to be true, except maybe e). which is too vague to give an answer: what is a 'good' sample and why would it lead to the null being accepted? Is this one of those statistics without the maths BS courses? Do you have a chance of justifying your answers or is it simply choose some letters get some marks?

I will resist the instinctive urge to downvote your posts everytime i see that pic: although under Bourinho that hate is turning into sympathy. But welcome anyway.

Yes. But my point is that it could make for very different societies, some more aggressive than others. Maybe that aggression is what is required for a religion to spread far and wide: an evolutionary trait if you like.

The problem is that if it did occur that early the archeological evidence would be very difficult to verify. Trying to find the genesis of ceremonial burial might be the best bet? I understand Zoroastrianism has two deities, a light and a dark one. I met a practicing Zoroastrian once - he was pessimistic about the survival of the religion. The 'monotheism' of Hinduism is very different to the Abrahamic god: there is but one Brahman (sometimes translated as god), but all things are manifestations of it, including gods. So there are many gods, or one god, or there is nothing but god depending how you look at it. Sikhism developed so late i don't think it can qualify as independent: Islam and Christianity would certainly have been established in the minds of the first Sikhs. The story of Lucifer is so similar to that of Prometheus i wonder how much of one is simply the retelling of another, but casting the other side as the 'baddies' to give a different cultural narrative. Maybe, but how were these polytheistic faiths actually practiced? My understanding was that many of the deities complemented each other rather than antogonised each other. I've no idea how well neo-pagan movements reflect old pagan worship but that is how they practice. But the way it teaches religions to interact with and experience existence are quite different. Abrahamic theology casts the world as a battle between good and evil and encourages believers to so segregate the world, including themselves.Taoism observes the world as the interplay between light and dark, each utterly dependent on the other, including themselves. In the former it makes sense to try to rid the world of evil, the latter it makes no sense to try to rid the world of evil. Could explain the, uh, enthusiastic techniques of the Abrahamic faiths spreading the word, while other religions were more passive in that regard.

Is that true? It's certainly not true now, and my understanding is that death by infectious diseases dwarfs violent deaths throughout our history.

But the Abrahamic mythology does include a large act of betrayal: Lucifer, bringer of light, and a third of the angels. It's interesting to compare Christian and Greek mythology on this point because they both had 'bringers of light': Lucifer and Prometheus (of course). Christians interpret the snake in Eden to be Satan and encouraged mankind to take the knowledge of the gods. Prometheus stole divine fire from Olympus and gave it to mankind, thus sparking mankind's creativity. Quite similar, but generally in the former myth Satan is seen as evil, while Prometheus is a benefactor to mankind (although there are different accounts). If Jesus had been born in India and declared himself son of god, perhaps not much fuss would be made as Hindus believe we are all the divine spark, all 'sons of god'. It seems Christian mythology is particularly against the ascendency of man as a technological or spiritual being. Some historians argue that The Protestant Reformation was necessary if the Renaissance was to be successful in Europe, as the movement was more inclined towards mankind's own work.

This could actually be an interesting topic. The concept of gods has been developed by many (all?) cultures. I wonder how many of these were independent origins - is it something any isolated human society will develop or is it just a contagious idea? Also true monotheism seems only to have occured once in the world but has spread to become the dominant belief system. From what little i know of Jewish history their culture, centred around a monotheistic mythology, was paramount in surviving disasters, diasporas, slavery and wars. The late Romans seemed to take on this idea of identity through a central god to unite their empire. The Sassanid empire tried a similar thing with Zoroastrianism but failed - much because Islam burst out of Arabia. So was there really something in this idea of monotheism that could unite people that other belief systems lack? Maybe having a king above kings is familiar enough to comfort people. But the Chinese and Japanese certainly don't lack cultural identity throughout their history, but do lack a singular god - the Chinese actually moved away from monotheism even as Europe moved towards it. And so on... Through historians and archeology (and possibly observing other developed social animals?) we might even be able to have a reasonable go at answering some of these questions. Got to me more interesting than the normal 'God exists, no it doesn't' discussions.