Ophiolite

Was that when you lost the ability to capitalise?

And there lies the root of the vast misunderstanding and technical ignorance you have been displaying throughout the thread: you think evolution is about the evolution of new species.

Vexen as I have pointed out to you in threads and by pm some of your posts are illogical, some are potentially offensive, some are simply wrong, accompanied by what can appear like an unpleasant and unjustified arrogance. You believe none of these things are true, which is why you wonder why you get a couple of negative reps. Here is some advice. I suspect you'll ignore it. Don't work to protect your reputation. Instead post intelligent, thoughtful, helpful posts. Don't make absolute statements that are trivially disproved. Do think before you hit the post button. Recognise that alternative viewpoints may be more correct than your own. And, most importantly, remember that this forum is meant to be for fun and education, not frustration and ego.

Frighteningly accurate.

I just gave you a nice Green one MigL since you make consistently well considered posts. But my main reason for posting was to apologise to all members for taking the thread off topic.. ... Loss of faith. I wonder if we shouldn't teach children (and adults) how to abandon dearly held ideas. I am not talking of just religious ideas - Fred Hoyle and Steady State theory came to mind. It would be part of any course on critical thinking.

I am really old and I am in the oil industry. And I have a wife and a taxman to support.

And since even identical twins have difference in their DNA it is unlikely that we can make perfect clones.

I am not making such a claim. I certainly find little or nothing in UFO reports and alien abduction stories that is worthy of notice. I don;t know why you would think I am making such a claim. you seem to be creating a strawman. I am simply challenging your assertion that aliens have never visited the Earth. You assert that this is a fact, that never in the 4.5 billion year history of the planet has it been visited by aliens. Had you asserted that there was no evidence for such a visit I could have agreed that was a fact. But you state categorically that there have been no alien visitations in 4.5 billion years. That is an extraordinary claim and does indeed require extraordinary evidence. Yes, it is annoying when that happens, but you have made a couple of assumptions there. 1. You assume the dislikes were applied by the same person. 2. You assume that they somehow focused in on you, whereas it seems much more likely, as Phi for All said, that it is a matter of what you said. I have noticed that some of your posts are, in my opinion, illogical. (See above.) Someone may have taken exception to that. For all I know it may even have been me. I don't pay too much attention to who I give dislikes to; I don't do it often, but I do it on the basis of message content, not originator. I'll take a look at the posts you refer to and see what I think. Edit: Well, your post wherein you state that killing animals for research is no big deal is both ethically questionable and operationally ignorant. I don't think it merits a dislike, but clearly someone else did. That is their right. Perhaps if you try stating your case more clearly, rather than with the appearance of casual arrogance you won't get that response. The other post is #24 on this thread and someone seems to have offset the neg rep with a like. In reading the other thread I was tempted to give you neg rep for whining about people hitting you with two neg reps. I've had three in the last two days and I wouldn't even mention it had you not brought the topic up. Deal with it.

I don't really have anything to add to the excellent earlier comments. I just wanted to express my own sympathy for your situation. Even trying to imagine what you must be going through I find immensely painful, so I have no real conception of the hurt you must feel. I hope you can take some comfort, no matter how small, from the fact that there are people out there who know you only as a name on a forum who are moved by your situation.

It is my perception that persons asking for homework help are wholly focused on their specific problem and have no interest in scientific discussion. Typically they are not even interested in the problem they are trying to solve, other than as a route to a passing grade. So what went wrong? Despite your sincere, reasoned and well informed effort to help the poster they turned out to be dick. In this case it would be nice if I turned out to be wrong and the member returned with effusive thanks, but I'm not holding my breath.

Strange is answering the question "At what age did you attain your bachelors in science?" His reply is "Never." He is not suggesting this is an appropriate choice for others.

Charon Y has raised some very reasonable points. The implication in your posts is that we could commence a successful terraforming program as soon as we got to Mars. That is what Charon is, rightly, questioning. Dreaming is a wonderful thing. However, the people who make dreams into a reality are the people who address the hard questions head on. Charon Y has asked a couple of hard questions. Making a personal attack is not a convincing retort to such valid questions. A more effective response would be along the lines of: I agree that we do not currently have the technology, or the underlying theory to carry this out, but developments that we might reasonably anticipate in the next two hundred years seem likely to address both theoretical and practical aspects of the problem. In regard to the failed Biosphere 2 experiment, keep in mind the fact that this was a first attempt, then recall the number of attempts (and failures) associated with any new technology. Edit: Cross posted with swansont

Please provide the evidence to support this assertion. Alternatively retract it, or identify it as an opinion.

Andres said the key words on salary "at some point", not "on graduation". And he refers to someone's father (i.e. an established person) making 100k. I'm on well over 100k (US$) in the UK, but I've been around a long time, though I only have a B.Sc. But then I'm not doing science - neither are most science graduates.

I agree about the French. The damned froggies let down the Young Pretender when he invaded England and sought to wrest the crown from the nasty English. Totally unreliable. And those cursed Italians, coming over here, building their roads and their walls and their bath-houses. If we wanted to be civilised we'd live in Milton Keynes.

I would suspect aliens with a warped sense of humour. Referring back to Ed's answer to the original question. Like Ed I didn't lose my faith, but unlike Ed I didn't throw mine away, I put it down quietly as no longer being of relevance to me.

On another thread you asked about dying from accidentally swallowing a small amount of toothpaste. Is there something you are not telling us?

Can you imagine the FDA and other licensing authorities allowing a (seriously)poisonous product that is routinely placed in the mouth?

If I understand you correctly, then, you chose the cut-offs you did precisely because these are commonly held cut-offs in the general populace. It would have saved us both some time if you'd said that in your first reply. 4. The identification of a point where we become human is meaningless, since the definition of human is impacted by diverse scientific, religious and cultural viewpoints that prevent arriving at an agreement. Probably. It's a frigging discussion forum. If you want neatly packaged answers go ask a kindergarten teacher. Several members have given you their opinions and you seem to be complaining because those don't fit into the poll options you gave and you wish to blame the members, not the poll! It's an interesting approach. Vexen said: That is not an argument, that is an assertion. What is your argument justifying that assertion?

1. Are you sure that is the case? If so, where did you read that information? 2. Educated guess: over the lifetime of a tree the total mass of leaves generated by a deciduous tree exceeds the total mass generated by an evergreen. However, I can see this as likely applying only to conifers. 3. Although, if all else fails, check the facts - for example: Deciduous species showed significantly higher NSCs than evergreens for all tissues; on average, the former had 11 % (leaves), 158 % (branch) and 103 % (sapwood) significantly (P < 0·001) higher NSCs than the latter. From: Fajardo, A. et al "Similar variation in carbon storage between deciduous and evergreen treeline species across elevational gradients" Ann Bot (2013) 4. Have you tried googling evergreen deciduous "non structural carbohydrates" ? There is a wealth of information. 5. All very interesting. It looks as if educated guesses may be partly correct.

What I could, or could not say is wholly irrelevant. The point is that such a viewpoint has almost certainly been held by at least some members of every generation of humans that has walked on this planet. Infanticide is practiced routinely in some societies. So, I ask again, why have you chosen the cut off dates you have chosen? I repeat, you appear to be bowing to convention rather than scientific analysis. Convince me otherwise.

1. What do you think is the current definition of science? 2. What aspects of science make it, in your view, a "crude instrument"? 3. Do you feel that logic alone would be sufficient for scientific investigations? (Your last sentence makes that an implicit absolute.)

Off-topic, but I routinely point out to members that it is not their right to decide if they have articulated a question properly. It is the right of the reader. You may feel such an off-topic intervention is rude. However, I find the presumption that you can decide on the quality of your questions to be rude. I don't think you intend it that way, so this is an FYI.

I've given you scientific and linguistic reasons why a) you can come up with different options b) it is a pointless exercise. It has been said that humans have an eighteen months gestation period. It's just that the last nine months are spent outside the womb. Human characteristics are not fully present until adulthood and one could easily make a case for saying a child is not human till at least their first birthday. So, why are you arguing for a cut off point at birth, rather than a later date - say when theory of mind is evident? You appear to have chosen upper and lower limits for your range simply because they are conventional and obvious. Is that truly a "scientific minded" method?

Good heavens no. I am almost wholly ignorant of physics, though I did one year of it at university. My degree is in Geology, with minors in Chemistry, Botany and Geography. My maths is too poor to be any good at physics and I'm too lazy to rectify it.