Ophiolite

My wife of thirty five years is a practicing Muslim who is becoming more devout as time passes. How do I deal with it? I keep my mouth shut and my mind open. For the record I am a devout agnostic. I think atheism is just as silly as theism. (But there is little evidence that the God of the Abrahamic religions does exist.)

You have to keep in mind that most positions receive many more applicants than there are openings for. Employers are looking for reasons not to hire just as much - and initially more - than they are looking for reasons to hire. Frequent changes are viewed negatively by most employers in most situations. Just make sure you convey the changes positively in the CV. Once you get to interview stage it should not be a problem.

I think Dawkins makes the point that he rarely expects to "convert" the people he is directly addressing, but to influence those who are undecided. Many of us use the same approach when debating with the cranks on this forum.

Just to clarify a point Commander, I am not a moderator. I am designated as a forum expert, which proves that one can fool some of the people some of the time.

By chance I watched a Dawkins' YouTube video last night in which he was asked that question. The suggestion was made that educating people in the wonders of science and helping them appreciate the effectiveness of its methodology was far more effective than attacking their beliefs. His response was that he thought his approach worked, but that probably both approaches should be used. That makes sense to me. I think it depends on where the individual is in their belief system, experience, maturity, etc. as to which would be most effective - and for some, neither will work.

Commander, if I may offer you a couple of tips for progressing your ideas on the forum. 1. Don't argue with the moderator/admin team. Your proposal is a speculation because you have not yet satisfied the members that your proof is valid. Any new idea, which steps beyond orthodox science is automatically placed in Speculations or New Hypotheses. 2. Don't use such large font. Typically large font is used by cranks. You don't want to be associated with them. 3. Do expect to receive a great deal of criticism. That is the nature of science. Members will, rightly, be attacking your idea, not you. If you feel you are being personally attacked report this to a moderator. 4. It would be best to focus on only a single one of your ideas at a time. Thank you for addressing most of my points from post 2, but I would still welcome an answer to my third question.

I don't know how it is in academia, but the fact that you have already "sampled" three universities and do not yet have your degree would set off warning bells in the business world.

I have some questions for you. 1. What does this have to do with quantum theory? 2. In what way does your proof about the number 1 relate to the theories of the universe on pages 3 and 4 of your pdf? 3. You do realise that Einstein's theories (SR and GR) are not not "hotly contested" as you claim? 4. Do you not think that colour preference may relate more to cultural and familial upbringing?

Arete's last two links address this point. What do you not understand in the links? Arete, or another member would be happy to explain it in more detail if necessary.

Dave, you seem to completely misunderstand survival of the fittest and selection. Fit is not the equivalent of the fitness you might seek to achieve by regular exercise, fitness is possession of a phenotype - a collection of traits, genetically determined - that work well in your environment. Many sub-Saharan Africans suffer from sickle cell anemia, a genetic condition. This occurs when they inherit the relevant gene from both parents. This is a distinct disadvantage and can prove lethal. But possession of the gene gives one a degree of immunity to malaria, a genuine advantage in sub-Saharan Africa. So populations who have the gene are fitter for that environment than those who do not. The same would not be true if we moved the population to Finland. Keep in mind that evolution works on populations, not individuals. There are heart conditions that will prove fatal before maturity, if not treated. Individuals with these conditions can now survive an reproduce. Why because if they have access to appropriate medical treatment the condition can be dealt with. They are in an environment in which there condition is not terminal. They are fit for that environment. Note that the proportion of persons with the genes for these conditions will tend to increase. That alters the proportion of alleles in the population. That is evolution. So at least four things are giving us more evolution today: 1. The introduction of new environments that preserve genes that would have previously proved fatal. 2. The much larger population which can generate more mutations on an absolute scale. 3. The greater mixing of populations across the globe than previously occurred. 4. Far greater variations in environmental conditions (diet, pollution, etc.) than has been the case in the past.

One hundred years from now a seance is the only way we will be able to discuss it.

I think it is both a pertinent and interesting article. I said nothing to the contrary. I simply made the point that all research needs to be replicated and validated before - provisionally, always provisionally - being accepted into the "library" of knowledge. That's a position that I would have thought you would have agreed with. I'm sorry you've got your knickers in a twist over, what to me, is a simple statement of good scientific practice. If you don't think that's good practice, maybe we should open another thread to discuss.

We are arguably evolving faster than ever before. Why? 1. A population size that is orders of magnitude larger than what has existed for the greater span of human existence. This provides the opportunity for orders of magnitude more mutations. 2. A radical change in environment for a substantial number of humans. We have become city dwellers. Our ancestors, to give a single example, did not have to survive high levels of nitrous oxides. Evolution is accelerated in novel environments. 3. Precisely because we are using modern medical practices to preserve the lives of individuals who might have died before reproducing we are changing the allele frequencies in the population: that's evolution. Honestly, BusaDave, the notion that we have stopped evolving is just plain silly.

Whoa! I would absolutely look for corroboration of the findings of any single study. Surely peer review does not validate the results, it merely indicates that the researchers have apparently employed sound scientific practices and good logic in their study.

He said 2009. That's five years, not fifteen. Are you in a different light cone?

I'm not very bright. I have no idea what the title means and you have suggested it is important. Will you walk me through it please? And I would appreciate it if you could so clearly and concisely, without all the little idiosyncratic personalisations.

I cannot help you locate any research but have two related observations: 1. I think it is more a matter of focus. One can still be aware of multiple pain sources, but is most conscious of the worst. 2. I can assure you that going out into a Scottish winter morning improperly dressed produces the sensation of cold in all parts of the exposed anatomy.

It is interesting that if you had mentioned your condition in strictly objective medical terms and I had then described you as defective I would have been justifiably censured by the moderator team and the majority of the active members. Less than 20:20 vision arising in childhood is often genetically related. That is a defect. A propensity for circulatory diseases is often genetic. That is a defect. So - shock, horror - I guess I am defective. And the realisation has come too late not to have children! What should I do? In short, Wonder_Wood, I suppose technically you are defective, but if your only genetic defect is a mildly inconvenient polydactyl condition then you are pretty damn lucky. Go ahead and have your family and join the rest of us defectives who make up 99% of the population. (But on a different topic, why not limit it to two - there are too many homo sapiens on the planet already.)

Are you serious? Do you not realise the observations of planetary motion were what led to the notion of Heliocentrism? The calculations that were facilitated were calculations of planetary motion, seeking to predict future observations based upon past observations. There are numerous examples. Simply reread the thread and note where other members have pointed these out to you. I give you an example to start with. You assert that neutrinos have an internal structure. No observation has suggested that this is so.

It is difficult to elaborate further, for you have not said anything of significance. Points in your hypothesis that are contrary to observation have been pointed out to you. Your use of terminology seems confused. You have offered no substantive evidence to support your idea. Your argument is very badly assembled, self contradictory and unconvincing. The absence of maths, which you seek to present as a positive, is sadly a reflection of the inadequacy of your thesis. Do you wish for more elaboration?

So your citation for your assertion about the number of emotions is a commercial company that makes money out of teaching people to recognise emotion. Can you guess what emotion I am experiencing now? Can you hear the laughter? But you said that emotion was the expression of motor expression of nervous impulses. Now you are saying that nervous impulses are the expression of emotions. Which is it? To help you out, keep in mind that cause typically precedes effect.

Ed, sometimes you are too thoughtful to be a Texan.

In what way is anger/mirth the motor expression of nervous impulses? Who said there were three different flavours of emotion? (Citation required) Who amended it to seven. (Citation required)

Dekan has overlooked the fact that the millions of persons and institutions who hold stocks behave in a narrow range of predictable ways in response to events. (Uncharitably, most people are sheep.) Or, from a different perspective, a fault plane is made up of billions of crystals and grains in contact with each other, within a stress field. That is ultimately more complex than the few millions of stockholders globally.

TJ, you clearly have an active imagination. Such an imagination could be of great value, certainly for enhancing your own knowledge and possibly beyond that. But an uncontrolled imagination, acting on supposition and not fact is counterproductive. I humbly suggest that speculation of the sort you are engaging in would be more appropriate once you have the equivalent, at least, of a bachelor's degree in physics. May I ask what is the current extent of your education in this regard? elfmotat's excellent post highlights the weaknesses in your current approach. With the educational level I have suggested you would not have been guilty of these elementary mistakes. Instead you could have asked intelligent questions that would have furthered your own knowledge and that of a proportion of the casual readers of the thread. As it is I think calling it pseudoscience is being too kind.