proximity1

In court, if a witness testifies to the inadequacy of facts or opinions (revised in editing) when these have been offered under auspices of one or the other party's scientific or other expert's credentials, with a view to impeaching the worth of that other witness's testimony, then the opposing counsel has every right and duty to insist on a presentation of the supposedly better grounds for the (claimed or implied) superior authority of the counter-witness. Here, J. Cuthber is asserting that, in effect, his views are correct, are better-founded, superior, in effect, to those of the author, E.L. Williams. Well, why are they better? On what basis, on what evidence? Cuthber says his views are free of the taint of base motives (pandering for attention) that he imputes by innuendo are behind the publication of author Williams' text, all without the slightest evidence offered, except, of course that he "considered" a more respectable motive on her part and "rejected" that. ETA: The crux of Williams' view is the suggestion that there is to date not enough solid knowledge of the potential for harm posed by pre-natal ultrasound scans and that, from her knowledge and experience in microbiology lab research, important dangers are being taken too lightly. Cuthber asserts that, because, by his claim, no evidence of harm is available, Williams' concerns are not only unreasonable but amount to scare-mongering and pandering for attention. But, logically, it may be that the actual dangers of pre-natal ultrasound scans have been missed--because they are at the cell level and perhaps, as it seems to me may be the case, have not been and are not being sought there. In such circumstances, a supposed lack of "evidence" of harm is due to a failure to know where to look and what to look for, and not an absence of actual harm. This line of reasoning rebutts Cuthber's argument that, if there has been no significant harm found, then, it must be because there has been none. Are you persuaded, as a scientist, by such reasoning? Are law courts wrong about such a principle of expertese in testimony? Why? If they (the law courts) are justified in following a principle which requires one posing as an authority on a topic to show proof of the basis of the authority, why ought we take a different view here? "the argument from authority" goes like this: (paraphrased here, in effect) "Only authorities (i.e. by formal qualifications, credentials) may have a valuable opinion, point of view, on a topic under debate, discussion." That is the gist of the agument from authority. I am not making that argument. Instead, I am asking for reasoned grounds from J. C. for why his obvious contention that his opinions here trump those of Williams & Casanova, is valid.

I'd understood it to mean, in the absence of any qualifying information to the contrary, as follows: "My only interest as a participant in this discussion ..." & etc. This seems to me an entirely reasonable reading of your assertion, given that you made nothing else clear about how one should read the term "interest" or "interested", or how you intended "interest" to be understood, and as that might have otherwise included a potential gainful interest on your part in the issue of ultrasound technology. In that situation, I contend that my reading was fairly construed and I had no clear indication at that point from you to the contrary. I specifically asked you, "Are you a medical professional or otherwise professionally interested...?" and not merely whether you are or were a medical professor. Again, in reply I get ambiguity from you; and the reason I ask your credentials in this matter is that you are emphatically presenting your views as presented here to be superior in value and probity to those of E.L. Williams and, I add, those of Michael F. Casanova, M.D. Would you please explain why the reader ought to give your views greater weight than those of Williams and Casanova? Are you, as well, a medical doctor? I don't know how to be more precise, and you take every opportnity to make the most pains-taking precision necessary in order to get a simple, straight, answer. Is it "John Cuthber, M.D." or not ? If not, what qualifies you to mock and deride the informed opinions of Dr. Casanova and his associate researcher, E.L. Williams, please? RE: Please note, and show how the following is false, if so in your opinion: I note that the author, E.L. Williams, specifically referenced this page at Wikipedia in the body of her article. It seems clear, then, that as she intended the very word linked, "teratology," it is, I quote, "much broader than" "the study of human birth defects".

RE : The effects of ultrasound technology, particularly as concerns effects on soft tissues in fetuses in utero, are quite reasonably liable to be at the cellular level, and not, as you’ve confined the “search-area” to be—in obvious defects in internal or external organs of the new-born. Therefore, unless doctors are looking for indications of actual cell-damage or malfunctions in cells in the new-born, there is no particular reason to suppose that, in the hypothesis that ultrasound technology can disrupt and damage cells, the doctors would detect anything amiss. In addition, “birth-defects” are phenomena we associate with the hours, days, weeks or a few months following birth. Your unstated assumption, explicit in your chain of reasoning, is that if the ultrasound technology were harmful, then it shall have produced an observed increase in birth defects. But, in fact, that doesn’t by any means exhaust the possibilities for potential harm, does it? Instead, the cellular damage could be such as is not noticeable until much later. Since newborns are still in developmental stages in their anatomy, damage to their internal soft tissue could have much delayed consequences. Imagine, for example, that the ultrasound technology disrupts the cells, in the fetus’s still-developing testes? That’s not something that doctors would likely look for or see evidence of soon after birth. But the foundations for later testicular malfunctions or low-sperm production could conceivably been laid from the time that the fetus was subjected to ultrasound. Years later, when considering male fertility, how many doctors are going to put ultrasound technology on the suspect-list? There is simply no good reason to assume, as you do, that all that medical scientists have to consider is the incidence of observed birth-defects in determining whether or not there is a question as to the safety of ultrasound technology. Very simply, in this circumstance, doctors don’t necessarily know what “they’re looking for” as indications of potential harm—no more than they are aware of what they may be overlooking. RE: In what I call a tendentious recapitulation of the reasoning-chain –as you imagine it to be--in the mind of the author, Ms. Williams, your comments give us a specious comparison, never found in her text; a comparison in which, on one hand, you refer to levels of ultrasound as “high-intensity”, as being “harmful”—(viz: “Based on the fact that high intensity ultrasound can damage things...”) and then, tendentiously proceed to define, as by implication, that a different level, which you, not Williams; refer to as “low-intensity”, is a level, by virtue of which label “low,” is not to be taken seriously as a potentially harmful factor, (viz: ridiculing the idea as follows, (in your recap of Williams’ supposed reasoning according to you), “I hypothesis (sic) that the low intensity ultrasound used in scanning babies is harmful.”) That is, you resort to a contrived comparison, one which the author never states or assumes in her article; you attribute this comparison to our author as being an integral part of her line of reasoning, you then indicate that what is somehow supposed to be by definition (never specified) “high-intensity” (whatever that means) is liable to produce harm, while“low-intensity”(whatever that means) is not so liable to produce harm. All of that in order to invite the reader to regard as preposterous such a contrived comparison, and, indeed, it is preposterous. The fact is, however, that, contrary to what you suggest by implication, both “high-intensity” and “low-intensity” are simply arbitrary labels and they become meaningful only when they are seen in the context of some actual case where the material subjected to ultrasound can be considered for its fragile character. ( I have already explained this above and you have completely ignored that explanation.) That, taken together, constitutes what I call a case-book example of a tendentious argumentation—it works via insinuation and innuendo. Those are your tools here, as I’ll show in still another example (*). RE: No more so that Einstein’s special or general theories of relativity “intend to promote a particular cause or point of view,” no, I do not. RE: But we are not “all at it” in the same way or with the same good-faith. It seems to me that you are singularly lacking in that latter in this thread. RE: Nonsense. I’ve expressly stated that an alternative to a motive of “attention seeking” is, as I see it, to be found in (from my post N° 5, quote) “...a plain honest concern, based on reasoned facts concerning the physics of cells and the soft tissues (to say nothing of hard tissues, such as bone, etc.) and the potential for serious harm to patients' internal tissues, but, most of all, to the health and safety of fetuses in utero--- harm as a consequence of ultrasound technology as used in routine medical practice.” (* ref. above : "as I’ll show in still another example (*)" ) this example: On the contrary, you have presented absolutely nothing in evidence of the base motive of “attention seeking”— failing to conceive of any other possibility. Your imagination is manifestly lacking something which comes without strain or effort to my imagination: the possibility that the author(s) are motivated by a good-faith and soundly-reasoned concern for the welfare of the general public. This, again, is the second time I have expressly spelled that out to you and the second time you’ve ignored it, claiming, flatly falsely, that I’ve “not presented...any alternative (motive)” to the base one you assert, without the slightest evidence for it offered on your part. RE: Because, until this, (just above), where you claim that your motives in participating here in this thread are, “I want the site to be based on science rather than scaremongering.” You’d offered none. But you’re ignoring in that another aspect of my query to you—one which I see I have to state expressly concerning your “interests”—as in your potential conflicts in considering the issues here without personal and corrupting influence on your positions; about that sort of “interest” you’ve given us no information at all. While I’ve stated categorically that as a disinterested layman, I have absolutely nothing “at stake” in the question, no potential gain or loss to color my views. What about you? Are you a medical professional or otherwise professionally interested (i.e. “involved” ) in the use or the promotion of ultrasound technology in medicine or have you any gainful interest in the good-standing in the view of the public or the medical professions of the use of ultrasound technologies in some manner? That is what I mean by your “interests” or lack of such in the topic. You’ve still completely ignored that factor. Now that I’ve put it in the plainest terms, are you going to continue to skirt that question? As I've been given to understand, oxygen, a gas, may be disolved in liquids. I don't know whether oxygen molecules in solution are physically distinct from their character in a gaseous state, but perhaps you do. In the article, Williams refers (with a hyperlink) to the presence of nitric oxide ( symbol ; "NO" ) as a very important factor in cells' activity. from Wikipedia: I gather that the nitric oxide is also disolved in the cells' liquid components, but maybe I'm mistaken about that. I doubt very much that E.L. Williams is mistaken about the significance of NO in cells and its potentials when subject to ultrasound. About the sugar in your coffee. You've written, mockingly, But my point was that oxygen, in whatever phase, is in the body and is used by cells. So, like sugar, the fact that it's typically in a solid granular form when you dip a spoon into it, and then, when disolved in coffee drinks, it's a component of the resulting solution, doesn't alter the fact that, once introduced into your coffee, the "solid" sugar, typically a variant of CnH2nOn, is nonetheless in your coffee, and the oxygen, once inhaled in human respiration, is nonetheless in the body via the lungs and the bloodstream, and carried by red blood cells. You may mock that as much as you wish; The essential facts are that in each case, the substances are introduced into a "system"--the sugar (CnH2nOn) in you coffee, and the oxygen (O), in the bloodstream. Once present (disolved) in liquids, gases, I gather, are susceptible to being released in bubble forms. Try a different beverage. Take, instead of coffee, a can or a bottle of beer. open it and pour it into a glass. After allowing the beer to settle, notice that from the bottom of the (inside of the) glass, tiny bubbles appear spontaneously in the liquid and float to the top of the liquid. That would be disolved carbon dioxide in the beer, as it is released from its soluable bonds in the liquid, right? My point was that, disolved or not, within liquids molecules of a gas--oxygen, nitric oxide, nitrogen--can be present and can be acted upon by external conditions or effects applied to the solution in question, whether that is a glass of beer or the liquid contents of a cell in the body's tissues. What part of that general view is wrong in the context of this thread's points?

RE : " That piece by Emily Williams isn't science." True. And who has claimed otherwise? You're trying to present a straw-man, there. Her article is an opinion piece--but it's an opinion piece by a professional research scientist (or two) who are by all outward indications entirely competent to write and comment knowledgably on the topic. Your own posts here aren't "science" either. It's interesting how you allow yourself here the very same scope and freedom to comment --not "practice science"--that you reproach E. L. Williams for doing in her blog. Nowhere do you present us with the grounded reasons why your objections to her article are at all better founded or reasoned than what she has written--with supporting references. RE: " No such rise has been observed. Therefore the original hypothesis is wrong." As a matter of logic, that is flatly false. The premise, that no such rise has been observed, is your unsupported assertion and, even if that were in fact true, it does not logically follow that the original hypothesis, or, namely, (as you have put it), "Based on the fact that high intensity(*) ultrasound can damage things I hypothesis that the low intensity(*) ultrasound used in scanning babies is harmful." ----that this is false. It's entirely consistent with Williams' article to reason that, contrary to your claim here, "If ultrasound produced damage then, when the technique became widespread, the number of birth defects would rise. ... if the number of defects rose, then people would notice" a consequent rise in birth defects could be inadvertently misattributed to other causes, and the potential involvement of ultrasound ignored, down-played, discounted--just as you discount it here. In that case, the original hypothesis --stated tendentiously in your terms--could be valid at the same time that the relationship in birth-defects is missed or ignored. Nowhere does Williams indicate that medical ultrasound is, as you put it, "low-intensity". "High" or "low" intensity are arbitrary concepts with no particular significance other than in relation to the fragility of the substances to which these are applied. As to your own interests, you haven't had a word in response to offer to my previous queries. But you aren't slow to impugn the integrity and sincerity, by insinuation, of others. Why is that? When it comes to the physics, you don't offer us the reasoned arguments why the intensities practiced in medical fetal scans are, with regard to the tissue matter being subjected to the scan, are fairly or correctly described as "low-intensity", nor why, in the case where, in relation to soft tissues, they are not low intensity, the concerns expressed by E.L. Williams are not entirely reasonable ones. Got "science" ? --as you're implicitly demanding that Williams present in what is an opinion article, based on her professional knowledge of the subject or just your unsupported assertions to offer? ------------------------ Note: bold (*) : indicates your tendentious phrasing, above, not the author, Williams', arguments or assertions.

I've now had a chance to read American Journal of Physics -- August 2009 -- Volume 77, Issue 8, pp. 688 "The kinematic origin of the cosmological redshift" by Emory F. Bunn and David W. Hogg and I recommend it. It's very well-written--as it has to have been, or I shouldn't have been able to follow its line of reasoning. The article sets out what are to me compelling arguments against a view of the universe undergoing a space-expanding change of scale. This means I find myself squarely in the camp of those who share the interpretations presented and defended by Bunn and Hogg. If I could, I'd shake each one's hand and offer my sincerest thanks for their efforts there. Drs. Bunn and Hogg, though I have no expectation of ever meeting either of you, this non-expert reader says, 'Thank you, thank you very much for presenting what I should have liked to have argued if I'd had your knowledge of the material." How are their theoretical opponents meeting their objections?, I wonder.

I think you're indulging yourself here. There are many ways of doing so. A very common one is to fall into fashions of opinion which are routinely expressed--so routinely that they succeed in passing in and out of consciousness without much of any critical analysis. So, we have in your presentation a host of such commonplace notions, offered in what seems to me is a rather easy and off-hand way. For example, This glosses over without consideration the question of whether and to what extent we could secure the inovation, progress and discovery by means which are deliberately calculated to eliminate competition, inequality and waste. I believe that our usual methods are hide-bound practices which grew up in a piece-meal and often power-interest-serving manner and that with that comes the rather large doses of competition, waste, futility and inequality. But these are typically what the economists call "externalities"--those who reap the benefits of such practices are generally one (privileged) set of people and those who bear the burdens and costs are another (much less privileged) set of people. Whether or not it's a negative aspect would depend entirely on what the ramifications are, the costs and benefits in actual life, of "reaching for the stars," wouldn't it? If that "reaching" means in fact that there are numerous vital interests which suffer, which go begging in dire need for lack of adequate public (or private) money, then the real consequences of reaching for the stars, however noble or impressive they may seem to the people who advocate for them, are that dollars spent to one end are not available for use toward other ends. The determining factors in such divvying up are all matters of the arrangements of power in society. No? Everything I know about public finance, budgets, and the everyday stake-holding and turf-protecting of public officials, corporate powers, their lobbying arms, and their opponents in search of support for competing claims on public and private money tells me that your assertion is about as far from the actual facts of the modern world as one can get. All of that helps us understand why your priorities are as you present them here. But those hopes aren't vouchsafed. There is no reason why, besides offering you comfort and peace of mind, they cannot also be in practical fact simply vain, unrealized hopes. What if we aren't always trying to better ourselves?--and, after all, isn't it an easy exercise to point to convenient supporting examples and ignore counter-examples? There are always some trying to "better themselves"--however "better" is defined. And there are always others who aren't? The crux is how many are there of each kind? What are the relative proportions? What is the direction of the current trends, tendencies? You can " ... hope that exploring space might give us a better appreciation for Earth," but we know, don't we?, that no one has ever suggested that this be, even hypothetically, a potential condition of present or future allocation of precious resources. When has an engineer, a scientist or other professional participant ever suggested that, in case the hoped for better appreciations for earth don't pan out, don't materialize, then, well, we're going to very seriously review and adjust the terms, conditions and levels of resource allocations to those ends? Instead, the fact is, if the hopes are forlorn, this is too little and too late in influence. No one would pass on next term's or next session's funding because the pay-offs in earth-appreciation weren't demonstrable. I know of no effort even to measure or observe them.

Yes, you asked a question --and I answered it : " I can't think of any plausible ulterior motive on her part or that of Dr. Casanova." If you can reason logically, then that leaves only motives which are other than ulterior--those that are disinterested, open, above-board, all of which are what I see as the antonyms of "ulterior." I think the motives are right there in front of your nose: a plain honest concern, based on reasoned facts concerning the physics of cells and the soft tissues (to say nothing of hard tissues, such as bone, etc.) and the potential for serious harm to patients' internal tissues, but, most of all, to the health and safety of fetuses in utero--- harm as a consequence of ultrasound technology as used in routine medical practice. By the way, I can add, as for clarification of motives all there is to know about how Ms. Williams' commentary came to be posted here. I, on my sole initiative, without the slightest influence in any form or fashion on the part of the author, Ms. Williams, proposed to re-post her views here, and I did that with the sole intention of bringing attention to a topic which I believe, as a completely disinterested observer, is worthy of wide notice and discussion, in order, especially, to allow the general public to give due consideration to a range of technologies used in medical practice in ways that there is valid reason to suspect are potentially seriously harmful. I have no personal interests whatsoever in the authors, their blogs, their professional or personal lives--just as, in posting here, I am acting solely on my own personal initiative without the slightest interest in or prospect for any gain of any kind whatsoever. I don't see how I could state a clearer or more complete position of disinterest on my part in this matter. Nor have I any reason to think that Williams or Casanova are acting on anything other than the best and most public-spirited intentions to serve the interests of the public to be informed. So, that's my view of "why". What are your interests, if any in the issue? please.

"After all, these cells have never been exposed to air- where would the gas in the crevices have come from?" Do red blood cells carry oxygen? Why? Is oxygen a "gas"? Do cells respire, consume oxygen as a vital function? Is there ever any H2O within a cell? Within the tissue composed by cells? Please, as a non-specialist, I'd like to be better informed on these points. Could you help? And, yes, I wonder: why would a medical doctor and research specialist in molecular biology and another associated researcher bother to rasie such concerns unless they were sincerely concerned about the potential dangers? I wonder! Perhaps you could suggest an ulterior motive on their parts--because that is exactly what you are insinuating. Personally, given what I've read already by Emily Williams, I can't think of any plausible ulterior motive on her part or that of Dr. Casanova. So, please, have you a good idea or, indeed, any idea at all why they'd bother to raise or attempt to raise concern in the public under false pretenses? I'll wait for your explanations. Thank you.

I owe an acknowledgement of several of your points as well made and showing in certain senses a flaw in some of my retorts-- RE: "The OP asked if we'll ever make it off-planet. Is there another animal at any other place on "the ladder" that can claim a higher rung on spreading Earth life off-planet? That doesn't make my argument anthropocentric. If I were to place bears at the top of the ladder with regard to removing honey from wild beehives, are you going to claim I'm being ursinopocentric?" I grant that, as a presupposed worthy objective, "making it off the planet" is in all reasonable liklihood exclusively a human prospect. Similarly, the bears example is quite apt. So, no, I wouldn't have charged you with ursinocentric impulses. On the other hand, if you were a bear, and urged that, perhaps I'd have to think again. RE: "And I dislike your building leap analogy. It guarantees complete destruction where nuclear capability merely threatens it." That's your best point, I think. I must concede that it shows the greaest weakness in my view. I have only a half-leg, then, on which to stand in suggesting that, the longer the present state of affairs persists, the less ground we should consider we have for self-congratulations and, on the central point, for our eventually "making it off the planet." That goal may be the key to our divergent points of view. For me, the prospect for and worthiness of making it off the planet is a very low priority and interest--there are so many other matters which, as I see it, better deserve our attention and resources---but that doesn't preclude my thinking the topic is worth considering and discussing. On the contrary ...

The Biology of Ultrasound January 10, 2013 by Emily L. Williams posted here with the kind permission of the author, Emily L. Williams, a developmental and molecular biologist engaged in laboratory research, written on recommendation of Dr. Michael F. Casanova, M.D. Both Ms. Williams and Dr. Casanova are at the University of Louisville. Both host a science blog. The following was originally posted at E. Williams' blog. This is opened here for the dual purposes of discussion and to heighten awareness by bringing this to the attention of readers, their friends and families who are susceptible to being advised to submit to ultrasound technology.

Thanks very much! P. By the way, (to all in general): from Wikipedia's site, "Metric Expansion of Space", section: "What is space expanding into?" , I read the following ( referenced to Peebles, P. J. E. (1993). Principles of Physical Cosmology. Princeton University Press. p. 73.) I think that in light of the fact that many readers here are non-specialists like myself, it's important to set out (perhaps with an asterisk) some indication each time a commonsense term is used in a specialist's sense.

Thank you for addressing the questions I raised. Your comments are interesting and helpful, giving me a better idea of what you mean. I still have comments and questions on the topic which I haven't yet raised here, but some of them may be better suited to other similar threads where, in fact, you offer views and comments directly related to what I have yet to ask and comment on. That said, in looking over the link you presented, I noticed the following article which presents quite a different view-- I wonder: am I correct in thinking that Bunn's and Hogg's views are relevant to the issues we're discussing in the posts just above? (until I can access the full article from a library, I've only been able to read the brief introduction at the link below.) American Journal of Physics -- August 2009 -- Volume 77, Issue 8, pp. 688 "The kinematic origin of the cosmological redshift" by Emory F. Bunn and David W. Hogg http://ajp.aapt.org/resource/1/ajpias/v77/i8/p688_s1?isAuthorized=no http://dx.doi.org/10.1119/1.3129103

My comments in reply are intersperesed below following the remarks to which they refer: But as I understand it, humans are either at the top of the ladder or at least "above" all other organisms. So, by my reckoning, the "ladder" form is a difference without an important distinction from the pedastal; you see it as signficant, I see that. I think that if we're at a rung which places us apart (i.e. above, rather than somewhere alongside other organisms) that's because we take as given what is hard to deny is a value-system "of, by and for the people." To me, that's not really any less an anthropocentric point of departure. I think what I'm really up to is interpreting the implications of your words differently from you--but I understood your intended meaning from the first, just as you've reiterated it here. This isn't an a priori "desire" on my part, it's rather a frank recognition of numerous important facts about human kind which are there--and which aren't particularly flattering-- whether we want to look at them or not. I don't have to "cast" humanity in any particular light. We're there in that light without casting, and in the light, there are things which are to our credit and things to our discredit. I think that my seeing our "warts" is plain honesty on my part. As I understand you, my seeing them and mentioning them as important, not merely "oh, and by the way...", means I"m casting us in a negative light. For me, a ladder, having "rungs", implies a hierarchy and we're above the rest in that hierarchy unless I've mistaken your views. Again, I understood that to be your view. Here's my counterview: For a moment, take, for example, our own value judgements as we consistently apply them to the plant and animal kingdom and notice that, if other organisms were able to do so, and applied our own value judgements to us, to humanity, just as we apply those same judgement to other organisms, then it would happen that, for no small number of plant and aminal kiinds, homo sapiens would be considered a deadly "pest" species, something requiring suppression or, better, eradication, in the interests of the health and survival of those other living plants and animals. Because that geological time frame offers a perspective which permits us to see "progress" and "success" in a way that shows how the duration of our existence compares with that of other organisms from whose evolutionary successes our kind has eventually developed. No single-celled organisms, then no multi-celled organisms. No invertebrates, then no vertebrates. You know what's interesting about that ladder? its presentation suggests in an automatic and unconscious way that somehow, somewhere, some way, there was some "climbing" done. As it seems to me, humans didn't "climb up" to their position; rather, they "emerged" there. And for that chance development, we have in a metaphorical way, the preceeding earlier developed living organisms "to thank", or we could never have emerged "above" them. My view is that one precludes the other. By my reckoning, as long as we're not out of the woods yet, we should refrain from congratulating ourselves on doing pretty well surviving the discovery of uranium. My focus is on where we're headed, on what the fairly-viewed evidence--all of it, the good and the bad--suggests about where we're tending to go, rather than where we've been or what we've come through. If, for example, as it seems to me may be the case, both our potential for and our probability of an eventual "wiping ourselves out" is increasing rather than decreasing, then it's there that our attention should be directed and not on how well we've done so far. If you leap off the roof of a 60-floor building, things will go along "well enough" for the descent over the first 59 floors. And my point was that, if by "suriving the discovery of uranium" we take your implication that, just as I'd understood you to mean, "The insanity I obviously referred to is global nuclear war" then the fact remains that our capacity to trip the nuclear-war "wire" remains just as present as it has ever been since the U.S.-Soviet arms race. The U.S. (and client or allied states, Britain, & France), tRussian Federation, the People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan and, not least, Israel, all have nuclear weapons. North Korea seems on its way to obtaining them; Iran is on the same trajectory. So, I fail to see how the objective tendencies still in force are less rather than more cause for concern than was the case throughout the so-called "Cold War" period. The world's potential for avoiding cataclysmic warfare hasn't improved one iota that I can point to. So, what I don't understand is why "complete insanity" should be confined to the actual resort to nuclear warfare rather than remaining right on the point of that eventuality year on year, decade after decade, when it does not appear that time is working in favor of the prospects for general planetary human survival on this specific count. Like yours, my views are based on comparative virtues and vices. Which other organisms have our capacity for doing sudden and irreversible global destruction? Which other organisms can foresee the environmental impact of their behaviors? Indeed, which other organisms possessing an "ego"--and there are some--exhibit more good cause for dismaying disdain at the pathos of our own kind? Humanity isn't a monolith. It's a mosaic. The highly-advanced technological societies of people have preyed upon and in a number of cases, wiped out, more environmentally harmonious human societies--ones without the technical means to match and defend themselves from machine-powered centrally-organised competitive and rapacious human societies. We could, conceivably, bequeath both survival and the works of literature and music, to future generations. Instead, we appear on the path to bequeathing those generations neither a livable environment nor a wealth of cultural treasures. What's not to disdain about that? Absolutely they do. And if I'm not a worthy and contributing member of such a group, then I consider that I'm wasting my time here in living. I have much to say about what humans ought to be doing but are not doing. If humans survive that long, it won't be despite "people like me". If we have genetic progeny that one day sets up house on a planet in another solar system, should that progeny happen to watch our Sun's spectacular red giant flame-out or not, at such a remove from this time, those future creatures may feel no more kinship affection for us than you yourself feel for, say, bacteria which first emerged in the primordial slime of this planet. It strikes me that your view of eons-long future human evolution--whatever else it produces--remains wonderfully enchanted by itself, stuck on amour-propre. As I see it, we either attenuate our special egotism or we do ourselves in by it. I understand that you see that as malicious disdain and see your own view as the benign and balanced one. I'd rather have the native American societies of the pre-Columbian era than have i-Pods and space-stations or extra-terrestrial colonies for myself or descendants.

Very well. I hope you won't mind if I pose a few questions to see if and how much I understand of what you're saying there. Let's say for the sake of argument that the analogy is valid-- i;e. we have no view "outside" the "building"-- would the "building" here be analogous to the "universe" or the "visible universe" or either or both of those? Second, are you saying that "the observer" himself--and I refer there to actual human kind--is in some demonstrable way actually in fact smaller relative to the "building" with passing time (--and, isn't it indeed a very important factor just what "with passing time" is supposed to mean? IOW, aren't the relative sizes (and I mean both--"building" and "occupants"--- and the "passing time" all inextricably bound up in the "picture" we're tyring to conjure? ) but that the measures being applied, the meter sticks, or whatever it may be, including the wave-length of cadmium light or any other supposedly constant factor, are not also "shrinking relative to the "building" ? And, if not--that is, if our measures aren't also shrinking, how, I wonder would we be supposed to determine this? What is it that allows us to assume that it is the relative sizes and not the absolute size of the "building" that is "expanding"--and, if its expanding relative to ourselves--the putative observers, aren't we either "shrinking" absolutely or the building is, indeed, expanding into "something" which it does not previously "occupy"? I'll much appreciate your clarifications which I wait eagerly to read. Thanks.

RE: "Apparently you misread quite a few people's posts"... Perhaps, but you haven't shown how I misread yours. Instead, this, from you, "My arguments are not flawed but show how an infinite space can expand, using no philosophy whatsoever ( imagine that )." is a wholly unsupported assertion and is completely unresponsive to the points I made--which you ignore--and, so, as a "reply" to what I'd written, it is "junk." Your "arugments" amount to "Everyone who agrees with me (i.e. you) will agree with me." I'm not impressed.

more potential sources F.Y.I. : (Please note, I do not personally endorse or recommend this course for content or quality--since I know nothing about its professors or the programs in which they teach. I mention the course solely for your friend's consideration and judgment as to its potential value to him.) A free on-line course: "Introduction to Biology: DNA to Organisms" presented on-line (without fees). see link for details and to enroll. Start date to be announced. 10 week course. 8-10 hrs./week work-load link: https://www.coursera.org/course/introbiology Biology , (9th edition) by Campbell & Reece, Benjamin Cummings, is the course's recommended text and has already been suggested above (see post N° 3 by CharonY) .

My sentiments exactly.

You may be underestimating the varietal potential in ways in which people can derive "joy", satisfaction, from their behavior. For a commanding general officer, a new war can be seen as so many new opportunities opening up. For an infantry soldier at the front, if there is one, it's more the converse--so many new opportunities closing down, right? And, while we're at it, there are "groups of old men" in every field of science and about some of them we could as well speculate on where they find their "joys".

If you think of "space" as "space-time", and, as such, an unfolding "event," then there is no particular physical "location" outside the event's own limits--i.e. the limit of the space-time event, intended here as a singular process which takes in all physical motion and all energy-matter at once. "Space-time" "extends" as "far" as/as "long" as the "event" is underway. So, the "limit" is found at the expansion's termination (that is, if an expansion is going on, or, conversely, at the collapse's termination, if a collapse is going on) --an undefined and, for us, undefinable space-time limit. What "happens" when (not "where") that "limit" occurs? Of course, I don't know but I (and others) could hypothesize that a corresponding "collapse" happens, perhaps followed by an explosive expansion. And, for all I can imagine, this cyle--explosion, expansion, collapse, may characterize an endless cycle with each "universe-event" (non-localizable) being a discrete and unique event among a unlimited series.

REVISED Thanks. I posted here earlier but, in doing so, I'd simply misread your comment--I thought you'd written, "If the Universe is finite, then the Big Bang theory is wrong. Full stop." Ooops. My bad!!! But, having re-read, I now see my error in reading your comment, and, with that, I want to say, thank you, and I agree. If the Universe is infinite, then I don't see how that could be compatible with any point of origin--such as the Big Bang or any other "origin". I cannot conceive of "infinity" having had an origin in space-time, as these seem to me self-contradictory in nature. So, with this re-edit, I've deleted the previously posted comment as it was based on my mistaken reading of your comment.

RE: "Do you see now how an infinite universe can expand ?" No, actually, I don't. You suggest an infinite series (number) of "points" on a line. Did you notice that it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference whether you "consider" those "points" in lengths of millimeters or centimeters, the "infinite" aspect is neither "more" nor "less" one way or the other. I boggle at the thought that this could have escaped your reasoning process. Try a graphic representation; it may help you. Imagine that an actual meter length is "infinite"--we know that in fact this is just an excercise, but the excercise should illustrate your error. Now, lets consider this "infinite" meter in millimeter segments. Do you "see them"? Very good. Now, we're going to "look" at the meter again, this time, we're going to "notice" segements of "centimeters", all along the "infinite" length. Now, why, please, merely because our focus has shifted from "millimeter" segments" to "centimeter" segments has the "infinitely" long "meter "expanded"? Please, think that over and, if you can, please explain why and how looking first at mm segments and then at cm segments changes in any way whatsoever the "reality" of the nature and character of the infinity?--making it "expand"? If you think carefully, you may come to see that your thought experiment has in fact fooled you and that, actually, nothing "expanded" merely by the step you describe (erroneously supposing that, by changing focus, you have "added" centimeter lengths where "there were none" previously). Those "infinite" cm's were always "there", whether you were focused on mm segments or not. I'm flabbergasted at the simplicity of your reasoning mistake here; but it's a very illustrative mistake. Did you notice how you lectured me as though, by paying attention to a "philosophical aspect," I was somehow "losing sight of the essentials"? What happened instead is that your flagrant error offers us an example of precisely how and why it is foolishly risky to suppose that in dealing with the "science" we are better off or best off leaving out the "philosophy." The nature and character of the conception of "infinity" is a "philosophical issue" par excellence! And that it can be repeatedly asserted not to be so is a very striking example of how science education has very seriously failed you and others here making the same error on that count. Could we now please have no more such error-ridden attempts at put-downs over the importance of "philosophy" in this discusion? It may save others from looking ridiculous. RE your, then, indeed, that is "my point"!: there is simply no expansion of actual infinity--nor any "expansion" of "space," either, since--how do I tell you so sublimely elemental idea?--merely further "separating" (i.e. "moving" them apart, ) pre-existing objects (or mass) in the same preexisting "space" "expands" nothing about the overall space--nor even the "local" space. But the entire thrust of the argument by those opposing the OP's point of view is that, indeed, "space", (i.e. "the Universe") is, they contend, "expanding" infinitely quickly --- that is, "at an infinite rate"! I have posed the contradictory aspects of that false assertion as clearly as I know how: If the Universe is "expanding" (which I grant) then it is and must be "finite", that is, bounded, and it cannot, then "expand" "at an infinite rate". Conversely, If it is "infinite" then it cannot be "expanding"-- nor, it seems to me, could one ever specify "within" infinity any "locality" that means anything real. On this, I grant, we are before a rather difficult concept. It does seem to take some imaginative effort to grasp that there can be, very simply, nothing, nothing whatsoever which could be properly said to be "within" that "infinity". But, if one reflects a moment on the nature of the concept of "within", of being "contained," one may recognise that infinity, being limitless, is the antithesis --in the most absolute sense possibleof that term --of "within". The very nature of infinity is just that: it is impossible to be "inside" it, just as it is impossible to be outside it or, therefore, for "spaces" to exist "within it", much less "expand within it", or, exhibit anything that can reasonably be conceived of as a "rate of expansion". When we try and imagine things "within" infinity, we are in that instant violating the essential assumption about what infinity is supposed to be. And therein lies the logical impossibility of such a mistaken notion. I'd appreciate hearing from you on whether any of that has "reached" you.

Arete, Hello there. C'mon! You almost have to put in a word here. I've said my bit, so I'll just follow silently. If you don't jump in, I may fall out of my chair. And you don't want to be the cause of that, now, do you?

My own views, neither orthodox nor those of a trained & professional expert ( but drawn from others who are that *) are that the field is in full fomentation and has been for decades. For that reason, I suggest this as a starting place: The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology . The main issues are set out by experts of divergent opinions and, in the bibliography, your friend can find further reading on all the topics treated. It's written at a level that will certainly be within easy grasp of a person such as you describe, even if he needs to look up some of the technical terms for a definition. Beyond that, he should have no trouble in starting and in getting a good idea of the mine-field that is modern molecular biology. Now, others on this site, who are highly trained in the field and expertly credentialled won't agree with my views as stated here. And that's one reason why I wanted to pipe up. No other regular participant is likely to have presented my take on the matter. Good luck to your friend. He's taking on a very interesting subject of study and at a very interesting time in its development. __________________ ( * Edited to add:--Oops! That is, they're drawn from views of "trained and professional experts", though not necessarily orthodox trained and professional experts) In an earlier draft reply which I lost in the process of drafting, I'd pointed out that the basic "What is DNA?" enjoys fairly soild consensus. But, as to what it does and how, --there, you are into the mine-field of divergent opinion. For the "What is DNA?" most any intro text or even Wikipedia should suffice. It's on the other more interesting matters of what it does or doesn't do and how, that the Cambridge Companion will be very helpful, I believe.

Logic is an indispensible, inescapable constraining factor in language use. Whether the language being employed happens to concern a topic in philosophy or physics, or math, or any other definable field of enquiry, that language-logic is determinative--without which the sense and meaning of the terms employed is lost, made vacant. As you apply them, the terms "infinite" and "rate" are utter nonsense. Logic, which language cannot dispense with, makes your usage null and voi--though you can deny that, your denials don't alter the fact. RE: "BTW, I've never said that it (i.e. the universe (in its unobservable entirety) ) is infinite." It's no matter that you have not. The point on which you are stubbornly insisting is logically false, whether or not the "universe" is or isn't "expanding." (It seems that your own words betray some however slight dawning recognition of the error because you're retreating into more and more hedging language--though you so far refuse to openly admit it.) And that point concerns not the truth or falsehood of the expansion per se but, rather, the incompatibility of a meaningful term, "infinite" (or "infinity") with a quantitative modifier, "rate", or any other term of the sort. You have still not made the slightest effort at explaining how "rate" as a modifier term can conceivably be compatible with limitlessness, with the infinite even as you've admitted that "in philosophy", these are incompatible. Viz: "In philosphy by definition something infinite cannot expand to become greater." That is true not merely or simply from a physics point of view, it's true because the meanings of these terms require that it is true. Otherwise, the terms mean nothing. And that is the crux of the problem, not the actual truth or falsity of the universe's asserted expansion.

I contend that as terms, and as concepts, by any reasonable notion of "infinite" (i.e. "limitless" "unbounded", ) and any reasonable notion of "rate" and "speed" (speed is implied in "expansion" over any given area, defined or undefined but existing in our accepted ideas of the physical cosmos (Yes, that includes NASA's views of that), these cannot logically combine in a sentence as asserted above, "inflated at an infinite rate" Infinite, as it is unbounded, without limit, cannot logically modify the term "rate," which necessarily implies a limit; whether known or unknown, that limit is, by necessity less than infinite since infinity is falsified by limits per se. But, there is another so far unmentioned logical error in the assertions of "inflated at an infinite rate" when this is intended to explain and justify a theory of an infinite universe ( stipulated as including both observable and beyond what we are able to observe ): again, as a logical necessity, an "infinite" universe cannot expand--ever. Neither "once upon a time," nor "in the present" nor in any finite period, continuous or discontinuous, in the past. This is apparently not immediately obvious but, upon reflection, we should be able to reason that, if universal space (including space-time as an inseparably unified conception) is infinite, it can not be "partial", now, or at any previous time. Infinite space necessarily precludes any expansion to that state of being for a simple reason that logic requires: infinity is not susceptible to "development" as it cannot be severable, partial, reducible. It is at once "limitless" in scope. Indeed, "scope" is itself inapt as a modifier of the term "infinite". Basically, our language, trapped in limits which are an inherent feature of our own physical size and mental constructions, is inadequate to properly comprehend what is infinite. An infinite space cannot have ever experienced "enlargement"--- "expansion". Further, the tone of some participants here, in repeating their erroneous reasoning as if they were defending what they are apparently so far unable to grasp about their own reasoning errors--the tone is very close to insulting. As Michael123456 writes in post N° 23, the discussion resembles something from the Middle Ages, where church authority brooked no dissenting views even as it imposed and enforced a world of conceptions which were patent nonsense. And, by the same token, If a universe with finite age is not infinite as indicated by the WMAP results, then it need not have inflated at an infinite rate. You are insistently begging the question. And so I have to wonder if you even understand what that means.