Ophiolite

I was not addressing your question about homosexuality in humans. I was asking about your view of homosexuality among animals. I now understand that you accept the common occurence of homosexuality in a wide range of animal species. Is that correct? Do you consider that a nomadic existence is equivalent to living in the wild? Do you think the characteritics of 'civilisation' lead to an increase or a decrease in the incidence of homosexuality? What is your evidence for your thinking on this matter? As per my previous point: which differences do you believe are significant in relation to homosexuality and what impact do they have upon its expression? Since this is a scientific discussion I expect you to justify your thinking with appropriate citations. Certainly we are animals. We differ from animals and we share similarities with them. Your suggestion - in another post - that we are perhaps closest to the ants and bees, etc, would not be well received by the vast majority of anthropologists, primatologists or ethologists. If you wish to promote such an off-the-wall position you really need to defend it with some solid research material. I await your citations from peer reviewed journals with interest. That is an interesting question, as is its counterpart - why is homosexuality so readily accepted in so many societies, ancient and modern? I have no idea. The theme of the OP is that the taboo has not arisen because the practice is unnatural and that there must, therefore, be some other explanation. That seems a reasonable position to take. I haven't presented any arguments. I have made some observations and asked some questions.

A scientific critique of the opening post would not have included comments about the education, scientific experience and alleged bias of inow. It would have addrressed, and only addressed, the statements made by inow and the references he provided. Instead you chose to launch an emotional diatribe. This told me more about you than about any inconsistencies in inow's argument. Not science, my lad. You don't like semantics? You don't like meaning? You don't like the heart of clear, unambiguous communication? Science free of definitions, i.e. free of semantics, is not science, but bluster. Do you like bluster? Now, please address my specific questions on the science of this thread. I shall repeat them to save you the trouble of looking back. 1. Are you denying the considerable amount of homosexual activity occuring in the animal kingdom? 2. You say we do not live in the wild. what has that got to do with the issue? 3. Are you saying if we lived in the wild homosexuality would be natural, but in a 'civilised' world it is not?

Just for your information: there are many forum regulars who understand the value of wikipedia as entre to a topic. Most science articles are well written and generally accurate, the reference section typically provides a good next step for many. Perhaps the icon shold be reserved for those who fail to appreciate wikipedia's value, or who lack the discretion, or education to use it, as they should use any reference, with scepticism. Here is another tangent: incorrect or incomplete information is not the same thing as pseudoscience. Pseudoscience, as a label, is probably best reserved for speculations that are clothed in some of the trappings of science without any of the substance. On that basis bad data do not cut it. Echinoderms that occassionally indulge in a sexual frenzy hardly constitutes a large blight on inow's argument. I would strongly advise you consult a dictionary for the meaning of the two words. Are you denying the considerable amount of homosexual activity occuring in the animal kingdom? That is, after all, inow's argument. And this would explain your snide, hostile, small minded, emotionally loaded post how exactly? I'm sure I am missing something, but with your profound scientific education I have little doubt you will shortly enlighten me. You would benefit from lessons in English comprehension. inow did not claim that we should do it. He made the perfectly reasonable assertion that given the common occurence of homosexuality among many other animal species, it would hardly be surprising to find it occuring naturally among humans. And, guess what, we look around and there it is. You say we do not live like them. Does any species live like any other? Generally not. It comes with the territory of being different species. Yet many species have much in common in their anatomy, biochemistry and their behaviour. It is therefore irrelevant and trivial to say we do not live like them. We are animals. We share many traits with other animals. One of those shared traits is homosexual behaviour on the part of a proportion of the population. You say we do not live in the wild. what has that got to do with the issue? Are you saying if we lived in the wild homosexuality would be natural, but in a 'civilised' world it is not? Come now, bring your scientific precision to bare and explain yourself. You say we do not live in small groups. That idea could certainly be challenged. Tally up the people you currently know and routinely interact with. Guess what....it is about the same number as a typical tribe, back when we were living in 'nature'. We haven't escaped our nature, we have merely carried it with us into the cities, where we studiously ignore anyone not of the hundred. What was that you were saying earlier about pseudoscience? Finally, a word of advice. The mods here don't tolerate flame wars. I see a 50:50 chance both our posts may be deleted. Lose the angst. Lose the attitude. Recognise that with a single post all you've done is show yourself up as a total dork. Try coming back with some of that objectivity you are so fond of promoting. It might lead to productive discussion.

For approximate values it is fairly simple physics, but its almost not simple enough for me. I'll take a look at it in day or two when I have time. This is just intrinsically wrong, but it will take too long to repsond just now. Again, I'll try to come back later to address your points.

Absolutely correct. Which is why I was agreeing with cypress only somewhat. Ah yes. that would be, let me think, what would one call that ? Ah! Computer file.

Reluctantly, on this occasion, I am forced to agree somewhat with cypress. Teh instructions are conceptual. They are not material. It is true we can express them materially, but they are initially - unless we take an extreme reductionist position - immaterial. They are thoughts. However, for those thoughts to precipitate actions they must be converted to material form in the way you have described. But I think it is important not to ignore the relevance of emergent properties - unless, of course, we don't believe in emergent properties.

You need to define your conditions more precisely. In particular. 1. Are we still talking about Mars in general and Olympus Mons in particular? 2. When are we talking about it? i.e. what will the atmpospheric density be? MArs used to have a dense atmosphere. The trouble with Mars is the atmosphere would extend to a greater height than on Earth, so that even at the summit of Olympus Mons there would be significant air resistance. The velocity you would have to achieve to overcome this and gain orbit might simply be impractical because of the amount of heat generated by friction. Far better to get up a good velocity, get beyond most of the atmosphere, then kick in with the rest of your propulsive power, presumably rocket.

No. Simply contemplate the order of magnitude differences between the velocity of the lobbed item when it left the track at the top of the volcano and the velocity of the air currents. Any benefit would be completely undetectable. The advantage of using Olympus Mons would be three fold, none of which relate to air currents: 1) Closer to the equator, so gain rotational velocity. 2) Further from the centre of the planet, so gravity is weaker. 3) Above the majority of the atmospher so air resistance is lower.

One cannot prove things in science, only establish the probability at such a level that it would be unreasonable to assign significant doubt. I do not really see this as a debate, but an educational process. I hope to educate you as to the incorrectness of your beliefs. I acknowledge the possibility that the reverse may occur, but I rather doubt it. No. That is not my advantage. My advantage is that my view is supported by a vast body of interlocking evidence. More to the point I arrived at the view because of the evidence. I didn't start with a viewpoint then try to gather supporting evidence for it. There is very little evidence on the other side of the argument in this case. I have demonstrated that your interpretation of evidence is faulty. For example you claimed solid flow was not possible, that it ran counter to known physical laws. That was simply wrong. If you don't believe solids can flow go stand in front of a glacier. We have tons of samples of mantle material. We have the liquidus derived by partial melting and fractional crystallisation. We have xenoliths in ultrabasic rocks. However, all of that is irrelevant. Haskell determined the viscosity of the mantle by measuring the rate of rebound of Scandinavia following removal of the last ice sheets. This provides absolute values for the mantle viscosity regardless of its composition. Creationist, I really do need to ask that you actually read what I have written. It is almost eighty years since Holmes demonstrated conclusively that the mantle would be convecting. If you wish to deny this you need to do so by finding research work by scientists that demonstrate why it is impossible according to known physical laws. You cannot do this, because no such research exists. Now I do not blame you for difficulty in accepting this. For almost three decades after Holmes work geologists and geophysicists ignored or denied this. However the growing evidence of heat flow (Bullard) gravity anomalies (Meinez) magnetic banding (Vine and Mathews) and the compilation of these and similar observations by the likes of Hess and Dietz and Pinchon led to recognition of its reality. The deabte has been held. The evidence for and against has been reviewed. The conclusion has been reached. Unless and until new evidence is forthcoming, or a radical and elegant reinterpretation of all the data is produced, then that conclusion stands. We are not discussing Darwin. We are discussing plate tectonics. Let's stay on topic. And I look forward to sharing such small amounts of knowledge as I have with you. But I shall insist, vigorously and loudly, that when the evidence point to this or that, that it does indeed point there. Arguments that science has been wrong in the past are irrelevant. Arguments that some people disagree are irrelevant. What matters is what does the evidence show?

I think it is very much the place of every thinking human to rail against the stupidity and waste of a youthful suicide. So I applaud and commend Michel for being crude. Do not go gentle into that good night, .... Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I am afraid that making one unsubstantiated statement in support of another unsubstantiated statement will not cut it in science. 1. You need to demonstrate that this claim has any merit whatsoever. Alleging that "Earth science professors from several prominent universities mostly agree that the idea is at least possible" is not sufficient. Who are these professors? When did they agree as to this plausibility? Are you confusing a polite brush off in the question and answer session at the end of a public seminar with a definitive statement in a peer reviewed journal. 2. How do you account for the complexity of Benioff zones in the western Pacific? What explains the quite different complexities alon the western seaboard of the US? How will you explain the Basin and Range province if you remove the plate tectonic explanation? How do you account for the Benioff zones that are present in areas other than Circum-Pacific? How (near to my heart) do you account for the genesis of ophiolites? Etc. 3. As an extension of the two above, what feature of observed Earth character does a subsiding Pacific Basin better explain than plate tectonics. The helio-centric view was based upon impeccable observation and irrefutable logic. That's the difference. There is no evidence that the Earth ever had such a crust. There is no evidence that a layer of water was ever so trapped. There is absolutely no mechanism that would create a planet with these characterisitics that is even remotely consistent with observations from geology, geophysics, chemistry, physics, or astronomy. There are a plethora of interlocked bodies of evidence establsing how the Earth formed and how it evolved. There is zero (metaphorical) room for a trapped body of water beneath a continuous granitic crust. If you have evidence to support any part of this absurd postulate please present it now. Let's concede for argument that the reservoir exists: why would the tides eventually cause the water to erupt? What triggers the eruption? Why is the water in a superfluid state? (What do you think is meant by a superfluid state?) If you are unable to provide clear, specific answers, then this is even weaker than a vague speculation. Describe what constitutes a basalt in hot pressurised plastic form. At one point I contemplated doing a Ph.D. on a topic relating to the origin of basalts. I have remained in peripheral contact with some of the advances in this field. I have never heard of a hot pressurised plastic form of basalt. Please detail for me its chemical and mineralogical composition. Is this a thoeleite, an olivine basalt, a komatiite? How does such a basalt emerge from a subsurface that does not have the composition of a basalt? How is the complex layered nature of oceanic crust derive from this singular emplacement? How do you account for the clear evidence that the oceanic crust was emplaced by successive vertical additions over millions of years? Don't sell yourself short. I have hopes you are considerably smarter than the dickhead who spewed that nonsense. They do not imply this at all. The heterogeneity of the mantle is well recgonised and has informed the determination of Rayleigh numbers and ru values. Surely you understand that increased heterogeneity must necessarily encourage higher values of ru, thus making symmetric, stable cell patterns even more unlikely. So your 'recent discoveries' further undermine your speculation. Secondly, the heterogeneity of the mantle is a consequence of several mechanisms. These include partial melting, crystal fractionation, chemical fractionation, recycling of oceanic crust, absorption of subducting slabs, selective devolatisation, absorption of water saturated terrestrial accretion wedges, etc. The majority of these mechanisms occur as a consequence of the subduction process. Forgive me creationist, but you are waffling. You cannot say, on the one hand that everything above rises, then on the other that this only applies to liquid magma. What were you trying to say here? A word of advice: if you ever wish to be taken seriously in discussions on this topic it would be best not to display your gross ignorance so openly. There is nothing wrong with being ignorant: we are all ignorant of most things, but try not to wear your ignorance like a badge of honour. Go read some elmentary textbooks on geophysics. The ability of the solid mantle to flow is not only well established, but is wholly consistent with our understanding of physics, the properties of materials, and the composition of the mantle. I do not intend to call you ignorant without providing a means to remove that ignorance. I presume you have ready access to a good university library, since it would be insane to challenge such a well established theory as plate tectonics without such acccess. (And of course you are on speaking terms with Earth science professors from several prominent universities.) These documents may aid you in your education: Arthur Holmes established the possibility of convection in a solid mantle, showing that estimates of its viscosity were several orders of magnitude lower than that required to support flow. "Radioactivity and Earth movements" , XVII.Trans.Geol.Soc.Glasgow, Vol.XVIII–PartIII, 1931. "The thermal history of the Earth" .J.Wash.Acad.Sci.23,169–95 1933. In an especially fine piece of work Haskell established the flow viscosity of the mantle, deriving a value that - despite improved observations - remains valid today. Haskell,N.A. "The viscosity of the asthenosphere" .Am.J.Sci.33,22–8. 1937 Gordon then demonstrated that this solid flow was possible through the mechanism of solid state creep and that the observed viscosities were quantitatively consistent with the theory. Gordon,R.B. "Diffusion creep in the Earth’s mantle". J.Geophys.Res.70,2413–8. 1965 I look forward to your response, but urge you follow your head, not your heart if you expect to reach truth.

It's good to know we have some common ground.

I know of no biologists who have nothing other than deep admiration for the man. The only people I know who ridicule and despise him are ignorant, self righteous religious zealots with all the perception of dessicated rhubarb. Do you feel there are scientists, or those with scientific educations who have negative views of him? I'm intrigued.

Assuming you survive banning for inconsequential trolling perhaps you could answer me this. Who ever told you that "modern professional scientific intellects" made the claims you allege? Science routinely seeks to deconstruct processes into their simplest elements, a search for divisibility. Science has the art of comparison at the base of many of its techniques. Science is continually seeking for the connection between events: cause and effect are axiomatic. Science, in the application of chaos theory, for example, makes sensitivity central. Evolution is transformability. I have little idea what you mean by 6 and 7. In short your claims are spurious, your concept of science seriously distorted.

Correct. We don't know the relative importance of slab pull, MOR push, and current drag. We don't know what initiates a MOR or a subduction zone in a particular location. We don't know what terminates a MOR or subduction zone at a particular time. We have not conclusively established what determines the angle of descent of the subducting lithosphere. We are not sure of the role played in production of mantle plumes by the D-layer. I could go on, but this is sufficient to demonstrate the accuracy of your statment. Why would you expect them to? A stable tetrahedral, cubic, or hexagonal pattern is only possible at low values (less than about 30) of ru, the viscosity ratio across a layer. Since mantle values are higher than this such stable patterns are automatically precluded. Unsteady, asymmetric convection is to be expected under the conditions pertaining in the mantle, so that complexities of convection cells should show chaotically variable behaviour in time and space, matching just what we observe. As our FEA models improve, as computer processing speeds increase, we will approach closer to effective models of cell geometry and its relation to plate distribution. Really? What is your explanation for Benioff zones?

Since the Earth is not a perfect sphere on any radius the gravitational forces on the ring would be uneven and a portion of it would be preferentially attracted towards the Earth. Subsequent behviour would depened upon the material properties of the ring.

IIRC you do.

He gives you friendly advice. You appear to have come her with the express view of getting yourself banned as some weird way of justifying the notion that your ideas are being unfairly condemned. I am sorry. I don't know what you mean. I suspect you mean you disagree with me strongly. If so please address at least some of my points in detail. I have shown you the respect of taking considerable time to examine and critique your views. The least you can do is accord me similar respect and address some of the counterpoints I have raised. The points i have made might be invalid - clearly I think not - but if you close your eyes to them how do you expect to advance your case? There are four principle reasons you may have come here: 1. To convince others of your thesis. 2. To explore weaknesses in your thesis. 3. To await the applause of people agreeing with you. 4. To seek self confirmation of prejudice by being pilloried. Reasons 1. and 2. are honourable. If either is your reason you will respond to my points. If 3. or 4. are your goals, you will ignore me.

Demonstrate with specific examples that this is so. Explain how the US military was surprised in December 1941 by the Japanese when they had been aware for almost a decade of the possibility of hostile action by the Japanese. Why did they not assume the worst case scenario and place Honolulu on a war footing? Why, during the Cuban missile crisis did the Kennedy administration not assume that some of the installations were ready for action and thus carry out a pre-emptive strike on Cuba? In short justify your statement that is contradicted by dozens (and probably thousands) of incidents/scenarios, large and small throughout US history.

I am not a moderator. I have no reason, at present to wish to see you banned. I am at a loss to understand why you would think this. I am also puzzled as to why you have decided to politely respond. You imply I have given you cause not to respond politely. Perhaps you could point out where I have been offensive. I have attacked your argument and your abuse of semantics, since objectively your arguments and your semantics are extremely weak. That's what happens in a discussion forum: we attack weak arguments - hell we attack strong arguments. The strong arguments stand up, the weak ones fall down. I never said it was a contrived technical artifact or coincidence that survival was used as it is: I clearly stated that it was deliberate metphorical usage designed as convenient shorthand. I have no trouble, and no scientist I know of has any trouble, recognising that this usage, and the anthropomorphic metaphors surrounding genes, are nothing more than convenient metaphors. You seem to have a literalism hang up that is distorting your view of reality. Science does not use the facts of science to make moral stands. Science is amoral. Science, as noted, uses the metaphor to simplify discussion. If others choose to abuse the findings and language of science to make some moral stand that should be taken up with those individuals and groups, not with science. I do not have the faintest idea what you mean by this sentence. If it is important to your argument please clarify. Exactly so. No one is arguing against this. You are assigning a meaning to survive that is not applicable to its usage in the context of gene transmission. It's a strawman argument of zero value and even less interest. If you are trying to say Dawkins is a bit of prat you will get no argument from me. If you are trying to conflate Dawkins' views with those of all evolutionary biologists then I shall argue until the bovines are domiciled. Edited for a plethora of typographical errors.

Modern evolutionary theory does not, as you claim, promote survival. You are attacking a strawman. Another poster suggested you need to study evolution a little more closely. I suggst you need to study the English language, and its rich heritage of using metaphor, a little more closely. The processes of sexual and asexual reproduction are quite well understood. The consistency with which genes are duplicated in these processes have been documented with some precision. We have chosen to call these processes survival of the genes, or passing on the genetic heritage. It is well understood, at least by scientists, that these are convenient short hand terms. Survival in this context does not imply some kind of life-after-death, supernatural survival, any more than passing on the genetic heritage means that the DNA involved has passed on to a higher plane of existence. Secondly, you claim that evolutionary theory promotes survival. Again, you seem to have real difficulties with using words as they are used by the rest of the planet. (If you choose to do so it is little surprise that you are confused.) Promote implies (stronglyimplies) that a great, central tenet of evolutionary theory is survival. It doesn't. Evolutionary theory merely uses, as has been noted above, the word survival as a convenient short hand for a suite of processes. You are conflating wholly different meanings of the words promote and survival to posit a set of beliefs that scientists do not actually hold. Rather than putting energy into attacking an imagined, but wholly ephemeral 'supernatural' twist to evolutionary theory, you would better occupied in learning how the English works. It has a rich heritage of using metaphor that has survived since the days of Shakespeare and even thoseof Chaucer.

So you prefer to believe anything you read in a book even if the idea is wholly speculative and is unsubstantiated by any evidence. A little critical analysis reveals your suggestion as improbable, if not downright silly. I don't know. I can proposed some plausible actions that would involve cautious attempts to communicate coupled with a readiness to attack the vessel if its actions came to be deemed hostile. I would anticipate strongly contrary views as to the appropriate action would exist within the government and the final outcome would be determined as much by chance as by rational decision making.

And you know all of this, how?

How many people died from food poisoning last year? How many people died from malaria? How many from road accidents, shooting accidents, drowning, hypothermia.......? How many died from terrorism? The risks are miniscule, the expenditures to counter inappropriate, and the hype to alert us is a clear victory for the terrorists.

Which is why those of you planning large tanks of the stuff to pass on to your granchildren are going to have disappointed grandchildren. (OK it won't disperse that fast, but it will get out of even the most solid tank over enough time.)