Ophiolite

This is only one third of the story. It does tell us about which parts of the interior are solid and which are liquid, and what the densities are at different depths. From this, to work out actual composition, we need to know what material the Earth was assembled from. This is taken to be meteoric, specifically chondrites. Finally, a mix of experimental and theoretical work lets us establish the mineral phases that will form from particualr compositions at given temperature and pressures.

I would still like you to answer my questions. Questions that I have had to repeat. Then I can focus on the other points you have made and questions you have asked.

I see. So you think the function of pschology is to understand what other people are thinking. Interesting. (Wrong, but interesting.) As far as I am aware - and I invite you to educate me in this area - the only studies that reveal certain actions to give a false sense of intelligence are pscyhological studies. Ironic, isn't it? Again, this obsession with the notion that psychology is about abnormal psychology. Businesses have been able to increase the productivity and satisfaction of their workers by taking advantageof the Hawthorne effect. Their are hundreds of similar examples. Indiustrial psychology works: it delivers results. what makes you doubt these results? You have offered zero evidence in support of this contention. Your entire argument appears to be "Freud was wrong therefore all psychology is nonsense." It isn't a convincing argument. So you can judge character and spot liars without knowing what other people are thinking. Wonderful skill. I am sure you find it useful.

Based upon A Tripolation's own statements, it is unlikely that he knows of any places outside the US, apart from a vague sense of Europe and China. It also seems rather likely that he has zero idea of the history of these places and how that impacts upon their current conditions, problems and outlook. It does seem a shame that with such committed apathy in these key areas that the apathy does not extend to expressing opinions that can have little basis in fact.

I am at a loss to understand what exactly you are asking for. A number is a number whatever way it is expressed. 15 base 10 is still 1111 in binary or F in hexadecimal or 1.6 x 10^1 in Scientific notation. So, what is the issue?

You have been on vacation for a week. I've been working my ass off. Do you think I might be permitted a break from construction of a response that will require more work on my part? 1. The evidence is unequivocal: land based plants are very recent entries in the game of life. If you require references for this generally known snippet I shall oblige.2. The first organisms were heterotrophs, taking their energy from their immediate environment. Organisms capable of photosynthesis followed these. They did not precede them. I f you require references I shall provide. Is that a yes, or a no? Was that a yes? So your statement that "Chemists have for several years tried to concoct different brews in an effort to bring about some simple form of life,..." was incorrect? I'm sorry I don't understand what you are saying. Rigney, I am not trying to give you a hard time, but through your imprecise use of language and your vague claims and statements you are certainly giving me a hard time. My questions and observations are designed to try to elicit what it is you are thinking and sometimes why you are thinking it. Only then can we know if we have something to discuss.

That would be the same William Paley whose work Darwin so admired and whose structure he consciously copied elements of when writing Origin? Self righteous attacks on thinkers who got it wrong, but have an intellect likely superior to your own make you look more foolish than them. Try sticking to facts in future.

cipher 510, you have nailed it. For all practical purposes certain theories are treated as facts by scientists. The scientists who work with those theories may have a philosophical , dare I say it - theoretical notion that doubts still surround the idea, but in their primate brains those are facts. There is also a lot of vacillating between facts and observations. We observe that the Earth is round, not a flat disc floating on an ocean of mercury, but at one time that would have been a theory. The problem is that many get nervous (or infuriated) when they hear the words 'it is just a theory' and engage in a kneejerk reaction, fearing the imminent appearance of creationists or moon landing deniers. Of course that's just my theory of what's going on.

Two Saturdays ago I went to the Houston zoo where I was amused by the sometimes inexplicable actions of a variety of animals. I had much the same reaction on reading the linked article.

Stradi, a suspicion is growing in my mind that you are conflating psychology with abnormal psychology. Is this the case? Do you recognise that many of the studies of psychology conducted today are very much focused on what you and I might call 'normal' behaviour and are in fact designed to define and elucidate normal behaviour? Do you consider these studies bogus and unscientific?

He introduced a methodology that was new to the treatment of mental illness and our psychological makeup. He sought to explain behaviours on the basis of a logical sequence of developmental events in the life of the individual. He attempte to show that simialr events led to simialr outcomes, and he sought to demonstrate this through observation and construction of case studies. Most of these elements were new, and certainly none of them had ever been brought together in a cohesive manner before. That, in my book, certainly marks him out as a pioneer. Was he wrong? Of course he was. So were the early chemists who promoted the phlogiston theory: that doesn't alter the fact that they were pioneers too.

Prince, how do you plan to initiate the earthquakes? How can you ensure that the complex system of subterranean stresses is adjusted just so to cause this fault plane to move this amount, and not that fault plane by that amount? What do you see as the difference between the eruption of magma at a well defined place by natural processes and the attempt to cause it to erupt at a different, less well defined spot, by means of initiating earthquakes? High risk strategy, is it not? Or do you fully expect that the magma will all be constrained underground? If that is what you intend what evidence do you have to support such a concept? O.

Understood, but the practice of calling this a specific gravity rather than a bulk density is simply wrong. If the obsidian is from a basic igneous rock then the absence of free quartz, the preponderance of ferromagnesian minerals and the absence of any significant porosity in any of the individual grains would give you a fairly high density. I believe 3.0 gm/cc is typical.

Emilo, you are using words in a contrary way to everyone else in this discussion. Those others, as far as I can see, are either practicing scientists or have had, or are undergoing, a scientific education. Terminology in science is very important. They all recognise that. They are agreed upon the meaning of certain words here - you disagree. I do wish you would recognise how wrong you are in this regard. It is quite painful to watch you close your eyes to the unpleasant possibility that you may be mistaken. Will you consider exploring one narrow aspect of this topic of semantics, wherein I shall seek to convince you that your definition is wrong? I hope you will else this discussion has passed its Sell By date.

Because the solar panels could be produced in situ from lunar materials, not flown to Earth orbit at large energy cost. You would only need to launch the initial robotic factories.

So how do you account for atheists, raised in an atheist household who love both their parents with 'all their heart'?

Quartz is silica. You cannot really talk about the specific gravity of sand, but only of the sand grains. We have grain density (or specific gravity) and bulk density. The bulk density depends on the graind density and the porosity of the sand. The latter depends upon the shape, angularity, size and sorting of the grains. For an uncemented sand this could vary from below 20% up to about 40% (for cubic packing of equisized spheres). All these figures are off the top of my head. Olivine is about 3.4. Pyroxene and amphiboles can have more complex compositions and hence a wider range of densities. I think these can range from 3.0 up to 3.9, but the more typical values will be in the 3.2 to 3.5 range of the olivine. Again, please note, these are the grain densities, since you cannot apply specific gravity in a meaningful way to a loose sand. As you can see the grain density is about 30% greater. However these ferromagnesian minerals are generally platy, so that they will pack more efficiently, yielding a lower porosity. Your estimate of double the bulk density would be entirely consistent with that. The only black sand I can specifically recall is an olivine (?) sand on a Hawaiian beach. A little checking reveals that there are black sand beaches on Tahiti, at the site where both Captain Cook and Captain Bliigh alighted. So you may have a little piece of South Sea history.

I am routinely frustrated by aspects of the page break regime in Word. I can't help you to an answer, but at least you know there are fellow sufferers and sympathisers.

Silica has a specific gravity of 2.65. I don't know where you got the lower figure from. Black sands that I am familiar with are generally formed from ferro-magnesian minerals: olivines, pyroxenes, or amphiboles. I don't know if they are the typical source for black acquarium sand.

I just want to add a fourth voice that expresses surprise that anyone today would think Freud's concepts were worth a damn. Is does seem to me that he was important because he highlighted the possibility at looking at behaviour in a new way. Pioneers should be respected for taking the first steps, regardless of how tentative or misguided they turn out to be. I recall reading Interpretation of Dreams when I was fourteen or fifteen and reaching the conclusion that if you base your theories on sexually repressed middle class Austrians, little of value will come of it.

I didn't. I'm not authorised to read the riot act to you. If you don't want critiqued for writing nonsense' date=' don't write nonsense. That's what I did. You chose to ignore the questions I asked and not to address the points I raised. Will you respond this time? 1. Would you now agree that is is not a fallacious argument to suggest pan spermia is plausible, simply because this moves the location of abiogenesis? If not, why not? 2. Which experiments have been conducted with the intention of creating life? 3. Would you agree that the combination of cladistics and genome analysis may eventually allow us to determine the approximate character of the last common ancestor for all life? If not, why not? 4. Would you agree that protozoans and lichens were definitely not the first life forms? If not, why not? 5. Would you agree that photosynthesis post-dated the very earliest life forms? If not, why not?

I understand the preference today would be to group them based upon DNA sequences. In that case the following would apply: Thermatogales Green non-sulphur bacteria Green sulphur bacteria Flavobacteria bacteroides Cyanobacteria Purple bacteria Gram positive bacteria Spirochaetes Slightly more information on each group may be found at this Universe of California Museum of Palaeontology website, or a much more detailed breakdown at the eubacteria page of the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life site is always worth a visit for questions concerning classifcation.

I imagine you are talking about the work of Chatterjee and Templin. The Geological Society of America Special Paper 376 is not available without membership or payment, but there is a useful review of the publication here.

Your observations here display a deep misunderstanding of evolution. The lungfish that are alive today are descendants of lungfish that were alive in the past. It is entirely possible for some of the ancestors of ancient lungfish to have given rise to the land vertebrates. At the same time other lungfish would have been the ancestors of today's lungfish. What do you find so implausible about this? Are you aware that we have examples today of speciation in vertebrates of just this sort of thing. The whole point about evolution is that small changes occur and build over time. There are other types of fish which breathe in oxygen through there stomach walls. The lungfish takes that approach a stage further. Build on the very simple structures present in the lungfish's lung over millions of years and you readily develop a fully fledged lung with as many bronchial passages and alveoli as you could wish for. And to repeat, there is absolutely no reason a population of lungfish, separate into different environments, should not evolve in separate ways. Please note that the lungfishes that are extant today are not the same as the lungfishes alive in the distant past. They may have many morphological similarities, but they will be genetically distinct. If we had a time machine and could retrieve one of those ancestral lungfished it is probable that it could not interbreed with today's lungfish. In order to better understanf how you have arrived at these distorted ideas of evolution would you summarise what education (formal, or self) you have in this field? That might better equip me to address yout points in a helpful manner.

This is a public forum. Members are entitled to comment on any remark by any other member. The you need to work on your communication skills. Just for your information, though it has nothing to do with me, more than 50% of your posts come across as insulting and condescending. If that is not what you are aiming for I'm afraid you missed. See what I mean? On the abiogenesis topic, since you wish to return to it, you have several questionable ideas, some of which have been adequately challenged by Moontanman and others. Here are some that concerned me. There is no fallacy here. What makes you think there is? Of course if life came from elsewhere it would have to originate elsewhere. That is a trivial statement. It is not a fallacious statement. I'm fascinated by the topic of abiogenesis and have done a lot of reading in this area. Could you tell me which chemists have undertaken these tests. I am not aware of any serious attempts in this area. There are a huge number of experiments designed to investigate prebiotic chemistry, but no serious attempts that I know of designed to create life. This is interesting: in your first statement below, directed I think at Moontanman, you criticise for vagueness, yet your remarks seem an excellent commentary upon your own second statement. To use your own well established liking for the corny vernacular, isn't that a bit like the pot calling the kettle black. Yet metaphorically this is precisely what we may be able to do through genome studies and cladistics. The one obstacle may be the practice of horizontal gene transfer in prokaryotes. Protozoans and lichens are incredibly advanced and sophisticated organisms. They were most certainly not the product of that initial event. This has already been commented on, but there is no doubt, other than that which should be associated with all scientific pronouncements, that photosysnthesis was a relative latecomer. Rigney, you readily admit, almost with an inverted snobbery, that your are ignorant of almost every aspect of this topic, yet you gaily assert that you believe this and you believe that, without an ounce of supporting evidence. I am curious. What do you think is the advantage in that?