Ophiolite

I am interested in what it was that struck you as similar between the two. The comparison is not obvious to me.

John, I've just said as much by providing a full citation for the paper. Unfortunately I was unable to locate the book, Progress in Primatology, in which it appeared.

Speculation involves taking a mix of established facts, validated observations, uncertain observations, plausible alternatives and the like, and then contemplating possibilities. This totally conforms with scientific practice. Misinterpreting established facts, ignoring validated observations, imagining non-existent observations and considering impossible alternatives, then mixing this in an incoherent fashion is also a kind of conforming. It conforms to the concept mentioned by swansont of garbage in - garbage out. I have observed several members trying to help you on this thread. I have seen you resolutely insist upon maintaining your ignorance. Why?

On the face of it this seems like a fine idea. But when a member has been posting nonsense, sometimes for weeks, when the shortcomings of their posts have been pointed out in numerous ways, by numerous members, and they post yet another concoction of word salad I think it is wholly appropriate to call it word salad. I think it would be even more appropriate if said member were warned and, if necessary, banned more expeditiously, but until that does happen the word salad option, in the scenario I have described, seems right.

You are just saying that so they don't think I'm your sock-puppet. Elftomat said: I think that is when we are meant to report the post and not stir the shit. There are other forums where shit stirring is de rigor. In the past I would have agreed with you, but that's because there was insufficient effort to stamp upon obvious trolling. There is a new move afoot to tighten things up and it would be sensible for us to support this.

Your specific questions have been answered multiple times. You have exhibited an attitude that is not conducive to learning. Without a change in that attitude you will not be able to accept what to you is currently unacceptable. I see no evidence that you even acknowledge that such an attitude change would be in order. I do see that multiple members have tried in a variety of ways to explain the matter to you, and some fell on stony ground. I see no value in continuing any personal involvement here. In interests of my own health and so you run no risk of feeling guilt were you to learn I had experienced a fatal stroke I shall now place you on ignore.

That is an interesting hypothesis. What evidence do you have to support it?

Answering my innate call to be disagreeable, doubtless arising from some unresolved issues as a child, I find myself at odds with the objection to calling something word salad. There is a member on another forum whose contributions consist mainly of comments such as that. I agree completely that such contributions are pointless at best, annoying and unhelpful at worst. However, if a respected member - for example Strange - posts the comment word salad it saves me a great deal of time, since I am unlikely to disagree with his assessment. (The same holds true for many other established members.) I view it as a concise form of the longer: Your post fails on several levels. You are using terminology without apparently understanding what it means. In some cases your usage is exactly contrary to its meaning. You have introduced terms that are not used in this branch of science, yet have failed to define them. You have made assertions without providing any support. You have made assertions that are directly contradicted by the evidence. There is no logical connectivity between the points of your argument. You employ a number of logical fallacies. Now, I think a post like that would be acceptable under the rules and guidelines as posted. So why would the shorthand form, word salad, be unacceptable?

Meditation? I'll give it some thought.

On balance do you feel that most worthy proposals are successful, or is the system fundamentally flawed? Let me ask the same question from a different perspective. Are those who are judging proposals sufficiently qualified and sufficiently interested to do an effective job?

The rules and guidelines requiring that members not insult other members is a good one. It is more than good it is sound, productive, sensible, important and many other positive, desirable things. As someone who has been honoured with the role of forum expert it especially behoves me to respect this rule in all circumstances. The weather is very frosty in Aberdeenshire this morning.

I am not entirely clear where your difficulty lay. A search in Google Scholar for monkey banana water spray turns up, as its fifth item a paper by Pew. On page 20 of that paper, Andragogy and Pedagogy as Foundational Theory for Student Motivation in Higher Education, the author recounts the experiment and provides a reference - Baldwin, 2003. The Baldwin 2003 paper, on page 17, notes "In a famous experiment, G.R. Stephenson [1967] trained adult male and female rhesus monkeys to avoid eating bananas......" The reference then given is: Stephenson, G.R. ―Cultural Acquisition of a Specific Learned Response Among Rhesus Monkeys. In D. Starek, R. Schneider, and H.J. Kuhn (eds.), Progress in Primatology, Stuttgart: Fischer, 1967, pp. 279-288 Unfortunately, I am unable to find the item in Google Scholar, Google Books, Read Cube, PubMed, or any other internet resource. However, a more thorough search than I have the time to take might turn it up online.

I dream of Peter Jackson converting Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy to a one hundred and fifty part TV series. (Peter, are you listening?)

Now will you please answer the two questions that Strange asked. (Hint: your reply was not an answer to those two questions.)

Have you read all the links that have been provided to you? If not, then you have absolutely no grounds upon which to continue expressing disbelief.

The former. Nothing that has been said here would give weight to the second interpretation. It's not a difficult concept, despite your persistent attempts to make it so.

Whoa there! I carefully said "When I am mistaken I find it important to say so loudly, clearly and unequivocally and I react badly to anyone who appears to be doing so less than wholeheartedly." Note the emphasis on the appears in the original. I was not accusing you of being intellectually dishonest, I was stating rather plainly that you gave the appearance of such behaviour. That is annoying. If you do not wish your motivations to be questioned then do not post in a questionable manner.

At some point , in the midst of umpteen posts, I think you did, but you then went on - in post after post - to say "Yes, but...". You sounded very much like someone who did not really believe, or who was unwilling to publicly concede they were mistaken. Perhaps I am allowing my own ethos to creep in here. When I am mistaken I find it important to say so loudly, clearly and unequivocally and I react badly to anyone who appears to be doing so less than wholeheartedly. (This, as an aside, is an open invitation to anyone to point out to me any instance where I have not honoured that on this forum.) It would have helped me had you made this clearer. Perhaps that's just me. I must be misreading a lot in this thread. Where is anyone making that claim? I don't understand. In what way is c an absolute velocity. (I presume you meant c and not C.)

No. Strange did not give you a hostile reception. I am now giving you a hostile reception. If you think questioning, with a view to improving understanding, or to highlight weaknesses in an argument is hostile, then you really should not be participating in a discussion on a discussion forum. If you think taking the time to ask a series of pertinent questions, while fully admitting ones own ignorance, shows disinterest, then you really should not be participating in discussion on a discussion forum. Strange has taken a friendly, balanced, thoughtful approach to his questioning an observations. He has ignored the persistent refusal on your part to come to the point. I have seen Strange being hostile. Believe me, such is not the case here. If you are serious about having a discussion I suggest you lose the appearance of paranoia and follow Strange's lead.

Is the difficulty here one of the technical versus the colloquial meaning of selected? Overtone, you appear to be saying - for example - an asteroid strike would selectively kill all life within a certain radius and then a large percentage of life in a wider radius and so on. If that is your intent this is not the meaning of selection in evolutionary terms. Is this the issue?

Well, Strange has pretty thoroughly echoed my own thoughts - or since he got in first, I suppose I'm echoing his, including thanks for the full reply. I'll emphasise a couple of things that seem important to me: As someone who dabbles in reading a little of the Greek philosophers and not much more I find it astounding that anyone would think that dichotomies are a good place to be. Whether or not anything actually happens, things appear to happen and it is upon that appearance that we act, whether in physics, business, or life in general. I don't see answers to the "great questions" being arrived at in my lifetime, so I spend little time contemplating them. They are like galaxies that have been expanded for ever beyond my horizon. Is that why I don't get a royalty cheque?

True, but this is a science forum.

tar, no one has been disputing the fact that many directions can have great significance. You will note that the direction in your example is important to us because it is a direction whose axes points perilously close to us. It is a relative direction. However, we are not talking about directions, we are talking about magnitudes of velocity and your initial claim that there was such a thing as an absolute velocity. Now, after scores of posts, you are still persisting in trying to salvage some sense that you were right. You were not and this should have been wrapped up days ago with a simple acknowledgement from yourself that you were mistaken.

Proof is not required. It is self evident and implicit that if everyone does only good deeds then no one would be your enemy.

How many? I have absolutely no idea. You asserted that his ideas were scarcely heeded. You did not, to my recollection, specify that this was by physicists. My cursory 'investigation' reveals that he is well thought of in philosophy circles, hence my point 1. Less than nothing, since what I imagine about it is likely false and therefore takes me below zero. It is obvious, it seems, to you. It does not seem obvious to most of the rest of the planet since it has not gained substantial currency. You have presented no abstract of his solution. You have given no clear citations that one might follow up on. You have simply made an unsubstantiated assertion. I responded in kind, but remind you that the onus is upon you to justify your claim. You may disregard it in the same cavalier fashion with which you appear to have arrived at your conviction. (The proof of relativity theory and its adjuncts lies primarily in observation not in logic.) View me as an ignoramus. You won't be far off the mark. I have no idea what is meant by a positive metaphysical position. For me, currently impossible, since I have no idea what you are talking about.