Ophiolite

You state that you welcome criticism ( though you earlier rejected mine as hurtful). You ask that any criticism provide evidence to support it. My best way of addressing this is to rewrite your post in proper English. you can compare the two versions and identify where and how you have gone wrong. hi, sorry for the late reply! I request your kind understanding because I am very involved, at present, in difficult academic research. Also, please remember that I am trying to do this research under very difficult life conditions. So, once again I request your kind understanding.1 Of course I accept that my English is not advanced. Certainly, I do not believe that it would be advanced because of its "pronunciation".2 But I don't accept that it was as bad as the level that some have claimed. I do not doubt that some members have good qualifications ,especially : Arete, CharonY , ajb , Strange ,Studiot ,Imatfaal , hallsofivy ...etc. All of these are already known.3 (Note that I also appreciate hallsofivy ,ajb & studiot, ajb for being polite or elegant, while hallsof ivy is wise.4) according to the expressions which are above, presumably it has been understood incorrectly (I have told incorrect! , ok ,this is my own incorrectness and of course I apologise)5 1. Requesting someone's "kind understanding" is very old fashioned English. It would have been appropriate one hundred years ago. Not today. Also, you have already apologised in the first sentence. By "laying it on thick", asking to be forgiven then repeating the request makes you look desperate. 2. This sentence is unclear. Do you mean that your spoken English is heavily accented? If so, that is irrelevant. The criticisms of your English are of your written words. If you meant something else you have not made that clear. Placing commas in the sentence can help clarify its meaning. Perhaps that is what you were missing. 3. Did you mean to say "I already know they have good qualifications", or "I have already said that they have good qualifications", or something else entirely. The quality of your language is judged here by how clearly you communicate your meaning. Too often you fail to do so. If you persist in believing it is better than it is you will find it difficult to improve. 4. This item is akin to a disaster. Why are you repeating the names of persons you have already named? Which attributes ( elegance, politeness) are you attributing to which people? Your readers should not have to read a sentence three or four times to get to an approximate meaning of what you are trying to say. 5. I give up. There is just too much ambiguity. If you would even be courteous enough to do a spell check, use capitals at the start of sentences and stop apologising every five seconds then it might be possible to disentangle meaning from your posts without such effort. And while we are at it, please stop with the bold and coloured fonts. Such devices should be used sparingly, for effect, not as an all out assault on the senses of your readers.

Contrary to Tampitup's view that this , while amusing, was not helpful, I make this observation. The only common feature I see in success in business, sport, or life in general is persistence.

@Granpa. Do you have any evidence for your claims (whatever they are)?

You should care about your faults. They are significant and are part of the reason you are not being published. Perhaps we should be interested in the economic difficulties you have had. However, they do not appear to be relevant to what is emerging as your central problem - you are unwilling to accept criticism. Why do you keep on mentioning your economic difficulties? Correct English for your quote would be: Really, I do not care that I have these faults. I have lived with severe economic difficulties throughout my life. The only thing I care about is meaning. Unfortunately, I have no idea what you mean in that sentence by "meaning".

blue, There are several persons here trying to help you and you are closing your ears to what they are saying. 1. Nature will not publish your paper. They have no interest in publishing your paper. Your paper fails to meet the standards they have set. They have no interest in seeing your complete manuscript, or any other part of it. Their rejection is based upon two facts: a) It it does not meet their standards. b) It does not offer any significant advance of knowledge. 2. Your written English is truly dreadful. It requires hard work to understand what you have written. In some cases your English is so bad it is impossible to understand. 3. Your own understanding of English is very limited. you have misunderstood the very clear messages from Nature. You have misunderstood many of the posts from members here. 4. You appear unwilling to admit to both of these failings. Until you recognise how bad they are it will be very difficult for you to begin improving. 5. Your recent attempt to correct Strange's grammar would have been funny if it were not so sad. Strange was correct. Everyone else participating in this thread understood exactly what he meant. 6. We understand that you have had a difficult time in your life. That is why many members here are trying to help you. One way of doing this would be to allow us to read your abstract. Why are you unwilling to share this? 7. We genuinely want to help you. I know this post may hurt you, but unless you accept the points I have made you are unlikely to be able to achieve your goals. Once again, whatever your decision, good luck.

1. In forums and most internet communication using capital letters for all or most of your words is considered to be the same as shouting. This is considered to be rude. I understand you do not intend to be rude, therefore you should avoid using lots of capital letters. 2. As Klaynos has pointed out, on an internet forum you do not get to decide when people should or should not reply, although you can ask a moderator to permanently close a thread. 3. You have used the words ethic and unethic several times. You do not seem to be using them correctly. What do you think ethical means in those sentences where you have used it? Even if you are using it correctly, referring to ethical matters when you have makes no sense to me. Why do you mention it so often? 4. I think I understand why you wish to have further comments sent by Private Message. You do not like to see public criticism of your posts. This is unfortunate for you. Until you are comfortable receiving that criticism and acting on it you have no chance of having any of your work published. 5. I left this forum several months ago because I felt many members were too critical of some new members, who expressed themselves badly. I returned to the forum because I saw how many of them were trying very, very hard to be nice to you and as helpful as possible. I do not think you will get this level of support on any other forum, so you are right to say thank you to all those members who have offered help. 6. In regard to help, please post the abstract of your paper, or a portion of it, so that Strange and others can proof read it for you.

Read all his other posts. I think he is serious. There is a disconnect with reality. Cheers.

Probably means it is in the queue to be processed.

You seem to be sincere and very frustrated at the problems you are experiencing in getting your paper published. My comments are designed to help you, but I fear they may seem negative to you. I hope not. It is difficult to write complex concepts in a foreign language. Even simple ideas can be misunderstood because of mistakes that are very easy to make. If the standard of English you have been using to communicate with journals and universities is the same as the standard of English you have been using here, then I fear the results will always be negative. Please find someone whose written English is of a good standard, preferably a native English speaker, and have them edit your communications. Otherwise your writing will be misunderstood or ignored.

I thought they took it for an observed fact. i.e. we see chemicals proceeding from reactants to products. Then what is it? Personal incredulity is a weak position from which to argue. Foremost among these may be "Why do some people say truly dumb things?"

The vast majority of the research in biology and all its branches being undertaken by thousands of researchers does not require a definition of life, nor does it suffer from the absence of one. This portion of your OP suggests that our knowledge of life is seriously limited. The depth and breadth of our current understanding suggests otherwise.

I thought this was going to be an item on increasing the number of Republican voters.

No one has proposed being the big fish in the big pond. If one is concerned about size that would be obvious choice. They say size does matter, but that's just small minded thinking by individuals who are too big for their breeches.

What tends to exacerbate the insult is that Alfred001 (the OP) clearly has used his brain, has thought carefully about the meaning and has recognised that he still doesn't get it. He has then been relaxed and confident (and smart enough) to ask for help. I am sure, blue, that your intentions were good. It is just the outcome that was ****ed up.

No.

Some random thoughts: 1. By agreeing to and then holding the referendum, David Cameron has achieved in 24 hours, what Hitler was unable to achieve in five years: the destruction of the United Kingdom. 2. As a smug, elite bastard I always thought at least 90% of the population were fools. I now have evidence that at least 51.9% of them are. 3. Every voting region in Scotland voted to remain. Thus 62% of our population demonstrated that one can vote with ones heart and ones head at the same time. 4. Ich bin ein European. 5. Idiots! 6. Self censored. 7. Self censored On the plus side, if there is a ripple effect, perhaps the EU will fall. Then we can start again and do it right this time.

1. Mayr was one of the creators of the Modern Synthesis. Referring to him, as you did in an earlier post, as "the dead guy who doesn't believe that genes are the basis for evolution?" is both misleading and offensive. 2. Anyone who disagrees with Dawkins has my vote. 3. I am not back, but could not let this pass unremarked.

He is being hostile because he is frustrated by the failure of mods, forum experts and long term members, to stand up and clearly state "You are correct. We are harsh to new members more often than we should be, possibly a lot more often. We shall examine our behaviour in future and seek to be more welcoming and more understanding." The fact that no one appears to be willing to do this means either there is no case to answer, or you are deluding yourselves. I understand his frustration. I feel it to. I am currently enraged by the failure of others to recognise this simple, though unpalatable fact. Sufficiently enraged that my solution is to tell you all to go fuck yourselves, while I take a months sabbatical in the dim hope your attitudes will have changed when and if I return.

1. The danger is that a poorly executed tactic can look like manipulation and appear dishonest. 2. Perhaps your tactics are removing clarity from your writing. If one or two people fail to understand it is likely their reading skills that are lacking. If everyone fails to understand we would suspect writing skills. Since this post is clear it suggests the incomprehension arises from your application of tactics. 3. Then it would probably make sense to stop complaining about other things.

Nonsense. You stated them as absolutes and dismissed alternatives absolutely. Now you are moving the goal posts, when the correct response is to accept that you misspoke. Please provide citations for studies of the incidence of shipwrecked aliens in our galaxy. In the absence of such citations stop declaring your wild-assed guesses are somehow superior to my alternative scenarios, for which I assert no probability factor. Being aware of the Earth is not the same as being aware of us. You are moving goalposts again. No. That is what you suspect. That is what some people suspect, but the more thoughtful persons who suspect this are ready to admit that is no more than a suspicion and could be entirely wrong. You also display a highly terracentric viewpoint, imagining intelligent life needs and Earth like environment to develop. That is not objective and quite possibly wrong. No. You are extrapolating from a sample size of one. That is plain silly. Neither you nor I have any serious idea of how likely it is that life could evolve to a human level intelligence on an ice giant. The Fermi paradox does not imply rarity of intelligent life, it merely raises the question of why we have not encountered it. The Rare Earth hypothesis is only one hypothesis of many. I happen to "subscribe" to it, but I recognise there is just as much evidence for the contrary. And you know this from a study of 385 biospheres on planets in this galaxy? No? You are basing your assumptions on a sample size of one! I think that assigning probabilities to the matter of intelligent life, other than as an amusing intellectual exercise, is - with our current knowledge - a truly dumb act. I think it probable that you will disagree.

Do you understand that there could be other explanations for this? Would you like to take a moment to give me two examples of what could explain this event that do not involve telepathy?

The OP is saying he is aware of the problem - "choking" in a real situation - but he cannot personally find any sense in which this should occur. Even although he performs below expectations in some situations he does have any feeling that this is due to his internal attitude. He understands that it must be, but has not sense, no feeling, no intuition that this is so. Do I have that correct Alfred? I have the reverse problem. If I attempt to rehearse the delivery of a presentation I find it immensely difficult. I stumble and mumble, forget important points, ramble and generally make a mess of it. Put me into the real presentation situation and I perform close to flawlessly. The difference for me is that I know in the rehearsal the audience are not my real target audience and any mistakes I make are irrelevant. Once it is real, I'm firing on all cylinders and focused. I believe the sporting expression is "in the zone".

Neither did I, yet you chose not to challenge me on it. I've spoken of this before, in public and in the mod threads. It is not unique to this forum. It is, in my experience, almost universal in forums. Very well. I shall highlight each and every instance I notice for the next month. First example - the kneejerk reaction to The Angry Intellect's points by several members. And the pity is you are not even aware how kneejerk they appear. All very human, but moderators are expected to be better than that.

Scenario 1: The ETs have suffered the interstellar travel equivalent of a shipwreck and are currently ensconced on one of the moons of Saturn awaiting rescue. Their entire focus is on establishing contact with their fellows elsewhere and on surviving until rescue arrives. Scenario 2: As creatures who evolved on an ice giant they are established on Saturn and have no interest in the goings on of a pathetic little rock and any ludicrous inhabitants it might possess. Scenario 3: I refer you to Rendezvous with Rama. If you don't believe me, perhaps you can believe Clarke. You do realise that there is a difference between "better than" and "FAR better than"? 1. You assume that all travelling ETs have the same level and type if curiosity as humans. Apparently you did not heed my advice to contemplate the meaning of alien. This assumption is not required to be valid. 2. Why are you assuming intelligent life is rare? They may have come to our system to get away from the galaxy wide infestation of intelligent beings, delighted that this system contains only one and it is has not yet managed to reach the pleasant climes of Venus. On the one hand you say they are bound to be interested in us, yet apparently this interest does not extend to actually communicating with us. The logic of that position escapes me. Predation is the natural order? So is cooperation. Can you explain in what way Medicins sans Frontieres conquers and subjugates the planet? Despite the horrors that occur on the planet daily, humans are gradually becoming "nicer". If the trend continues, by the time we reach another, less developed planet we will be jolly good neighbours. Of course there is a case for it. I've made it myself, but it is only a case. It is not an absolute certainty. Far from it. I suspect the root of your error in all these faulty assumptions is that you are extrapolating from a single data point: life on Earth. I really do urge you to contemplate alien, for at least 30 minutes.

Just because The Angry Intellect may be guilty of improper behaviour does not invalidate his central point. Just because The Angry Intellect have an agenda does not invalidate his central point. This is because his central point is valid. If you seriously do not accept that then you - and any other moderator who feels that way - should reconsider their position.