Ophiolite

My son is 6% Chinese, 13% Indonesian, 25% English, 25% Scottish, 31% Malay. However he is a staunch Scottish Nationalist and considers himself to be Scottish. As lukasbecker noted in the previou post, race is a social construct. We are desceneded from Julius Ceasar.

The obvious routes to primary resources include: http://scholar.google.co.uk/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/

I don't know of any insect species whose biomass exceeds that of humans. Can you point to one? Exactly so. Arguably intelligence, tool use and language, which together gave us increased adaptability in a time of rapid environmental changes. Not necessarily and probably not. Depends on what you mean by upgraded. A characteristic that might have been a disadvantage in one environment could be a positive benefit in another. If a mutation introduces that characteristic in the 'wrong' environment do you call it a downgrade, but when the environment changes you redefine it as an upgrade? You see the difficulty.

There was no assumption. The questions were asked in order to determine whether or not you were making a moral judgement, and if so, what it was. Natural selection favours genes that are fit for a particular enviroment. All that modern medicine has done is to change the nature of the environment, so that previously unfit genes are now fit. Evolution is alive and well.

Which concerns you the more? The human gene pool, or humans?

Reading your post I had a strange sense of deja vu. Can your TOE explain that?

If you start with the same toolkit you are constrained as to what you can build.

You have to admit John that it is a nice twist on the complaint that immigrants drive down the price of houses in a neighbourhood. Perhaps Greg is saving that one up ofr later in the thread. Note: from this point on sarcasm is the only proper response to Greg's posts on this topic, since he is clearly immune to reason.

Your hypothesis is discredited from the get go by your singular inability to understand that only a per capita comparison can properly convey the potential impact on resources, society, etc. This is something schoolchildren learn in their first year of secondary school at the latest. You might want to revisit some old geography or mathematics textbooks. Here is a thought: if it costs us nothing in terms of money, in terms of time, in terms of effort, can it be called humanitarian. Humanitarian actions are ones we undertake because we care more about fellow members of humanity than we do about a small slice of our money, or out time, or our effort. I take it you wish to dissociate yourself from such actions.

True wisdom is knowing you don't have it.

It wasn't really advice. It was a concise statement of the absolute truth.

There is a special name for people who think they can dodge bullets. We call these people corpses.

I must apologise. I rarely notice who I am discussing things with. I focus on the arguments, not the personality. (Unless its one of the dumb ass idiots "with a theory".) Equally, why should we believe that the physical laws are constant over time? Why should we believe time has always existed? You ask if there is evidence for laws coming into existence. Of course there is. Our current inability to model the universe earlier than 10^-39 seconds (or whatever it is) is evidence that a different set of laws were in effect then. (And please, I said evidence, not proof, so let's not go down that unproductive alley.) I am saying that there exists an explanation for the universe that does not require violation of the Laws of Conservation. Personally, I don't have a problem in the larger scheme of things with conservation laws being violated. Such events would simply be taking place in a milieu that is currently far beyond our understanding. I don't have a problem with recognising our extensive ignorance. The distinguishing thing about humans is that we are the first animal, on this planet at least, who is aware of how ignorant they are. You ask why we don't see spontaneous creation of virtual particles happening more often. I understand that we do. We just don't see it on the scale of the universe, which is the same reason it takes a while for 14 to come up on the roulette wheel three times in succession. (But I keep hoping.) I didn't really follow that at all. I have always adhered to Robert Heinlein's fictitious concept of pan-theistic multi-person solipsism.

Evolution.

This point is still open to some debate. The history of oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere is an interesting one. I recommend this paper as an excellent reviewof the issue, though it is eight years old.

Dear hal, you accused me of being a racist. I asked you, in public, to explain yourself on the relevant thread. You failed to do so. In order not to embarass you I repeated the request by pm. You ignored it. Since you prefer to be admonished by admins rather than resolve issues quietly I shall honour that wish in future. I expect you'll get reported a lot.

That appears to be addressing the political/ethical areas that you declared were off-topic for this thread, so unless you want to ask to have this moved out of Earth Science I have no wish to discuss those points at all. (And probably not even then.) As to your original point: The largest current geophysical effect of human activities is global warming. This will have pronounced effects not only on climate, sea levels and oceanic circulation, but consequently upon the type and location of sedimentation. Human use of resources has caused a substantial redistribution of certain elements. However, that's geochemistry, not geophysics, so I guess you don't want to consider that. Or the redcution in biodiversity, which is clearly not geophysical, but will certainly impact the careers of palaeontologists in twenty million years time.

Yes. It would radically and almost completely alter it. Your inability to recognise this is one of the reasons you should not be trusted to make up definitions by yourself. Conclusion It bears little or no relation to anything that has been used in the past. And you still haven't answerd my question: do you really see no problem in using a definition that is different from that used by all other informed people?

That is interesting. Do you really see no problem in using a definition that is different from that used by all other informed people? I find that a bizarre position to adopt, but am willing to be convinced that is a postion that has merit. Over to you.

This is not generally considered to be the case. See for example, http://www.csun.edu/~hmc60533/CSUN_311/article_references/Sc_Feb93_EarthEarlyAtmos.pdf At best the atmosphere is thought to have been mildly reducing, with nitrogen and carbon dioxide dominating. There would be some free hydrogen. Formation of amino acids and nucleotides would be difficult in such an atmosphere, but these could have been provided by impacting bolides or at hydrothermal vents. It could not so arise from any aqueous body in contact with and in equilibrium with the atmosphere. There would be plenty of submarine and subterranean environments in which these conditions would not apply.

It is irrelevant whether or not the mutation in the gamete occured when it was produced or after it was produced. There is no practical way to distinguish between these two events. We know that mutations can and do occur in both instances. We would fully expect that some beneficial mutations that are subsequently selected for are generated in one way and some are generated in the other way. The environmental factor that caused the mutation in the gamete is highly unlikely (verging on impossible) to be one that protects the organism from that aspect of the environment. To put it another way, your question does not seem to be relevant to the character of evolution, so like Essay I am not sure what you are trying to get at. Perhaps you can clarify.

Empirical data demonstrate that engineers are not intelligent.

Perpetually, I am not sure where to begin with your enthusiastic, but inaccurate post. 1. The galaxy is not a good model for 'space dust'. 2. The sun formed primarily from gas, not dust. 3. The sun doesn't 'pull' the the accretion disk around with it. 4. The bulk of the angular momentum in the solar system resides in the planets not in the sun. 5. You have not provided any mechanism wherein the differences in velocity and momentum could produce the range in planetary compositions. 6. Giant molecular clouds, the breeding grounds of stars, are not circular in shape and do not arise from a single supernova. 7. Rogue planets do not reform into stars. Please accept that I am seeking to correct errors in your thinking, not attacking you. And welcome to the forum.

They have a reasonable idea of the direction of travel of the failing slab, since there is an extensive fault along which the rupture is predicted to take place. I've been trawling through a a dozen or more research papers on the topic and it is clear that Ward and Day's hypothesis is viewed as extreme by other researchers. First there are doubts that the mass of the landslide would be as great as postulated. Some authors suggest 100 cubic kilometres rather than 500. Secondly it seems that slip might occur in stages. Thirdly, more sophisticated modelling indicates that short waves would be generated. These would not be as effective at transoceanic crossing as the longer waves modelled by Ward and Day. There is no doubt that if and when a collapse occurs there will be a tsunami generated and it will cause damage and probably loss of life, it just is unlikely to be as severe as the scenario they postulated.

I wasn't dealing with opinions. Well, actually I was: pantheory's opinions which he is trying to pass off as logical statements. I find it ironic that in a thread where he argues for greater application of logic it is noticeably absent from his own postulates. No we don't. We have every reaon to believe they existed a very short time after the beginning of the universe. That is an entirely different matter. I do not find the expression "to be more likely" is a rigorous one. Calling it BS would be unkind. Waffle might be closer to the mark. More to the point it is typically used by persons who can't be assed to investigate the clarity that the more complex explanation may afford.