Ophiolite

All my selfless acts were performed because they made me feel good.

Why is this in pseudoscience?

Sorry insane, but that does not constitute a weapons system. You can beat a sword into a plowshare, but the optimum design of sword and plughshare dictate that they shall be different. If you require to pulverise material in your path you will use a system that could be used as a weapons system, but that will not be why it was designed and that is not what it will be. Although I have not made it explicit (and arguably not even implicit) my reference to shielding in point 2 included not only physical shielding, but shielding provided by a laser system, or other such device.

Walkntune, earlier you offered this quote from Einstein. "There will come a point in everyone's life, however where only intuition can make the leap ahead, without ever knowing precisely how. One can never know why but one must accept intuition as a fact." What several posters have said in this thread, often with excellent metaphors (e.g. phi for all) or a tightly reasoned exposition, is in full support of Einstein's statment. Look again at it: "There will come a point." This is not the starting point. This is at a crossroads on the journey to understanding. This point is reached by innovators after they have gobbled up all the existing knowledge on a topic, thoroughly masticated it, yet found it indigestible. (Excuse the mixed metaphors.) This is the point where intuition comes into play. Much of what lands up here started with intution, has intuition in the middle, intution at the end, and is embedded in a sea of intution. There is no sign of any observation, experiment, or logical thought process anywhere. Sayonara made the pertinent observation: your intentions were honourable, your chosen form of execution misses the mark.

Zolar, a book could easily be written to answer your questions. Indeed many books have already been written that address many of your questions. I for one would need to know more about your motivation for asking these in order to properly address them. It sounds as if you are planning to write an SF novel and want someone else to do your research for you. If that is not the case please accept my apologies for the insinuation. In the meantime I shall offer you these brief observations and questions. The appearance of the craft would be contingent upon four things 1. The absence of any need to streamline the vessel. 2. The speed at which it would be operating (since at significant fractions of c forward shielding would be essential. 3. The character of the propulsion system. 4. The character of deep space the craft is travelling through. (Probably a minor point, but it might be relevant.) 5. The aesthetic preferences of the designers. There are umpteen propulsion systems that have been proposed: Bussard ramjets, ion rockets, nuclear explosions, and so on. Deep spacecraft would use the one(s) that enabled the objective to be attained in an economic manner using accessible technology. (If you think that answer is to generic and obvious try asking a less generic question. ) They would be as large as they needed to be to carry whatever cargo and personnel you needed them to carry to whatever destination you had decided on for whatever purpose you had, plus all the drive systems, fuel and life support equipment necessary to complete the trip. Again, another generic question that is impossible to answer in specific terms. Your space station connection question is even more generic. I won't even attempt an answer to that. You really ought to be able to answer that one yourself, or - as requested above - let us know why you are asking all these questions in the first place. In general spacecraft orient themselves by identifying certain of the brighter stars. Why would these spacecraft have weapons systems? Over to you.

My apologies Dr.Syntax for not noticing your reply earlier. Regretfully I must correct you. Minerals, which zircons are, are not rocks. Rocks are made up of a variety of minerals (although there are some mono-mineralic examples). The age of a rock is the age at which the whole rock was formed, not the age of its constituent minerals. For example there are quartz grains in the Old Red Sandstone in Scotland derived from Lower Palaeozoic rocks of the Dalradian sequence. We don't declare that the ORS rocks are Lower Palaeozoic because some of their minerals derive from rocks of that age. Some of those quartz crystals were recylced and can be found in neighbouring Carboniferous sandstones. Zircons are even more durable than quartz and can go through many such cycles of erosion, deposition, diagenesis, possibly metamorphosis, and then more erosion. In the same way it is wholly incorrect to describe the Jack Hills rocks as the oldest on the planet simply because some of the minerals in them are that old. That is not the way geological terminology works. Your own quoted article confirms this. For example in the opening paragraph the author notes "However, recent discoveries suggest that rock materials exist today that are older than 3.9 billion years." This is followed by these observations: "The oldest terrestrial material on Earth can be found in rock formations of the Jack Hills in Western Australia." For terrestrial material read minerals of terrestrial origin. Note that this material is in the rock, it is not the rock. i.e. it is a component of the rock. And then there is this nice description: "Zircon crystals are extremely durable and can therefore survive billions of years’ worth of weathering and erosion, as they have in the Jack Hills. Even after they are recycled through multiple periods of sedimentary and metamorphic rock-forming processes, they are able to tell geologists about the physical and chemical conditions under which they formed." The Jack Hills rocks are themselves 'only' about three billion years old. Rather than being an attempt to 'parse words for a contrived point', this really is a fundamental issue. If those rocks were the same age as the zircons they contain we could gain an amazing insight into early crustal processes far beyond the remarkable understanding we have gained from the zircons alone. If you remain in doubt I quote you this line from the relevant primary research. "The Jack Hills zircons are therefore remnants of igneous rock-forming events that pre-date the rock record by up to 400 Ma......The variable age distributions within different rock units in the Jack Hills demonstrate that Early Archean zircons were derived from multiple source rocks;..." Cavosiea, A.J., et al "Internal zoning and U–Th–Pb chemistry of Jack Hills detrital zircons: a mineral record of early Archean to Mesoproterozoic (4348–1576 Ma) magmatism" Precambrian Research 135 (2004) 251–279 The full paper is available here.

lucaspa, your argument for using the word design in relation to the action of natural selection is well laid out, tightly argued and reasonably well referenced. (I especially like your appeal to Aristotle). There is only one problem with it. That is not the way the majority of biologists appear to use the term. Perhaps they are wrong and you are right, but I don't think you are going to change the status quo through debate on an obscure science forum.

Because there is nothing wrong with nudity except in the paranoid recesses of minds that are more uptight than a constipated antelope's arse. I routinely walk around my house naked. If the doorbell rings I will ensure I am suitable clothed, but if someone chooses to be on my property and sees me in living room, drawing room, study, or kitchen naked then, if it is a problem, it is their problem not mine. Can you explain to me what it is about nudity that terrifies you?

If you were able to post some photographs of the object there are some members here who might be able to comment. (Though it occurs to me that as a new member you may not be able to post photos yet.)

You almost got that right. On the other hand you were horribly wrong. I believe ID and creationism are practically indistinguishable. The difference between the two is that creationism is honest in its bigoted insanity whereas ID is not. However, I think the concept of intelligent design (not Intelligent Design) is a potentially interesting one. I do not engage in discussion of this point on internet forums, not out of a fear of being 'grouched upon', but rather because through observation I have concluded that most scientists and scientifically trained individuals are far too dogmatic on this point to be capable of conducting an objective conversation. Please note that this in now way supports your view but merely reveals the arrogance of my own.

Observational artifact. a) Resonanceb) Insufficient material density to accrete significant objects c) Collisional erosion d) Planet X Perm any two out of four. Chance, coupled with insufficiently developed cosmological theory. Caveat: I am not an astrophysicist; I am not an astronomer; I do not have enough knowledge.

There is abundant evidence they fall down on basic writing skills too.

Yep. that's how we problem solve at my company. And we're number one. You haven't worked in an engineering company, have you? Today many of those changes may tend to appear only in a software model, but still many make it to various forms of field testing and post launch modifications.

I think you are confusing yourself here. Currently the oldest known rocks are found in the Nuvvuagittuq greenstone belt on the shores of Hudson Bay. They have recently been dated at 4.28 billion years. Neodymium-142 Evidence for Hadean Mafic Crust Jonathan O'Neil, Richard W. Carlson, Don Francis, and Ross K. Stevenson Science 26 September 2008 321: 1828-1831 Prior to that I think the oldest rocks known were the Acasta Gneiss, also in Canada. They were right on the 4.0 billion year age. Reworked zircons have been recovered from Jack Hills in Australia that are close to 4.44, o4 4.35 billion years old, but these do not represent whole rock.

I'm not sure that I would call it useless - it may have some limited specific use - but it is certainly arbitary. Other metrics would show no change in pace of evolution, or fluctuating paces, or slowing down. The end result is meaningless. It might be interesting to see it applied in a systematic and quantitative manner alongside other metrics, but by itself it offers nothing new.

The exclusion of teleology from evolutionary theory was arguably a necessity when the theory was being developed. Since then this exclusion has become a largely unquestioned part of the evolutionary paradigm. If this exclusion is taken for granted, as iNow appears to do, it becomes mere dogma and wholly out of place within a science. Periodically the exclusion and the reasons for it need to be reevaluated. I take it that this is what we are doing in an informal manner in this thread. I'll make two linked observations that I think are important. If the emergence of life is inevitable; if the emergence of complex life is inevitable; if the emergence of self aware, intelligent life is inevitable, then it seems that evolution does have a direction. If it has a direction then we are likely only part of the way towards the 'goal' of that process.

What will happen in 2012? London will host a moderately successful Olympics, but people will complain about the weather, the high cost of accomodation and inadequate transport facilities. Meanwhile conspiracy merchants. doomsayers, the intellectually stunted, and those who prey on the foregoing will be searching out the next 'plausible' End-of-the-World scenario. My advice is get in early, identify it quickly and make a packet!

CharonY, my post contained some careful avoidance of saying certain things, because my biological knowledge is eclectic and consequently barren in many areas. It is my understanding that many organisms which have apparetnly maintained a stable phenotype for millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of years, may in fact have experienced major changes in their genotype. The difference between them and a line which has changed significantly is that the mutations in the changeable line produce knew behaviours, structures, or biochemistries, while the changes in the stable line introduce slightly different ways of doing the same thing. Is this correct, or have I skillfully misinterpreted what I imagine I might have read? If it is, then I have some sympathy for dr.Syntax's position. Raised in palaeontology I have zero knowledge of an organism's genotype, but very good data on its phenotype. On that basis those pesky little prokaryotes did bugger all for three billion years, but since we came onshore we've had the pedal to the metal. So the trick is how we define evolution. To stand any chance of justifying your position, dr.Syntax, you need to use a definition of evolution that is not the generally accepted one within the life sciences. Is that what you would like to do? It would provide a point for debate.

dr. Syntax, please confine posts to discussion of the topic and avoid reactions to the attitude and behaviour, real or imagined, of other posters. Now, out of moderator mode, here are a couple of observations of my own. When we are talking of evolution are we discussing changes in phenotype or changes in genotype? Evolution is traditionally defined as the change in the alleles in a population, so we are primarily talking genotype. The potential maximum rate of evolution is determined by the mutation rate. This is reasonably constant. On that basis I don't quite see why we should assert that the rate of evolution is increasing. The examples you have given seem to be somewhat superficial, focusing on the macroscopic, rather than the microscopic. I agree these changes seem impressive, but do they represent massive changes in genotype? What do you think?

With this opening proviso I can agree with the rest of yourpost. However I think your opening proviso is flawed. When we speak of evolution today we fully recognise the roles of genetic drift, sexual selection and the importance of processes involved in inidivdual development. (e.g. hox genes). In that regard I would say evolution is as proven as anything in our scientific lexicon. 100%?? Well, I'm not even 100% certain that I exist, so no, not 100% sure, but that's pedantic semantics, so in practical terms, yes, I am 100% certain that evolution (as defined above and as will be clarified by future research) occurs.

1. There is no evolutionary ladder.2. If there was, on this basis the KT impactor was much higher on the evolutionary ladder than anything since, ourselves included. 3. It certainly places us below other species on two ladders - the ethical ladder and the intelligence ladder. It isn't smart to mess up your environment since that will ultimately lead to your demise. See above.

Except that with the implant it might be possible to get wives to listen to husbands. That would be a giant leap forward. I felt that aspect was beginning to run out of steam and so injected a change of pace. It was an indirect way of saying telepathy is not a valid concept without artificial aids.

I think I see where the root of your misunderstanding lies. You are under the mistaken impression that humans are currently the dominant species on the planet. I understand that many of the globergerina feel the same way.

We are at the point of being able to interpret the content (i.e. meaning) of brain waves. We are able to install chips to read brain waves. Transmitting the signal has been in our technological grasp for over a century. We can also (or should shortly bea ble to) implant a chip which provides direct stimulus of the audio nerves. So we are approaching the point when we can exchange thoughts between two suitably 'chipped' persons. "It's telepathy Jim, but not as we know it."

This is why I almost never post: some smart(er) bastard always gets my point in first.