Ophiolite

I sense you think you are disagreeing with me. Is that the case?

This is not how science is practised, therefore in your view science is practised incorrectly. How do you account for its success?

I award positive rep for informative answers, amusing posts and ones which are insightful or compassionate. So it is logical to award negative rep for posts utterly devoid of valid data, deeply foolish ones, or those which are mind numbingly trite, or disgustingly self centred. No one has explained what is wrong with that. Edit: Insert missing word, one, in last paragraph.

So you have elected my possibility number 3.

There are three possibilities: 1) If there is no purpose to it all then I think placing ourselves at the top of the ladder is presumptuous. Intellect is hardly relevant since anything we think is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Rapidity of breeding would be much more important. 2) If there is a purpose to it all then it is likely that the evolution of self awareness and curiosity are part of that purposed. However, given such a teleological twist we must ask, "What comes next?". 3) We can decide on a purpose.

Several of the supposed response numbers were missing, which was disappointing. The survey takes longer than suggested. This was my good news: To recover from work successfully, you need to meet four criteria, which are psychological detachment, relaxation, a sense of mastery and a sense of control. You scored 15 out of 25 for psychological detachment, 15 out of 15 for relaxation, 20 out of 20 for mastery and 20 out of 20 for control. So it's official: I am a control freak.

You have elegantly corrected the semantic and philsophical error. May I correct the grammatical error? "I have lost count of the number of books/papers proposing different complementary mechanisms of evolution."

I love the story in his autobiography about his time as director of the planetarium in Armagh. Sectarianism was rife and the locals wanted to know whether Sir Patrick was a protestant or a Catholic. He resisted all attempts to provide an answer, but became frustrated by the constant background demands to know. He lived in a terraced house whose front living room window was clealry visible from the street. He purchased a large bhudda from an antique shop and placed it prominently on display. Then, each morning when he left the house he would pause in front of the Bhudda and bow reverently to it for a few moments. The questions on his religion dried up. They don't make them like that anymore.

Look at it from the fundamentalist point of view. Sex everywhere; godless evolution taught in schools; communist liberals lying about global warming; abortion; rap artists; gay marriage; pedophiles; a Democrat in the White House and Fox News viewer figures slipping. Armageddon is in the wings waiting to make a grand entrance.

We should pay more attention to poster's names: they do mean something.

Sir Patrick presented the monthly astronomy program on the BBC for over fifty years. He was a much loved figure in the UK bringing the breakthroughs of the field and the simple delights of stargazing to a lay audience. I had an opportunity to meet him about eight years ago and thank him for having kindled my interest in science as a ten year old. He will be sorely missed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20657939

Thank you for reminding me of the Yarkovsky effect and explaining with greater clarity than I've previously seen. And the Poynting-Robertson drag. It keeps cropping up in the papers I read on planetary formation, but is never explained - it quite rightly being assumed anyone reading a research paper on such a topic will know what it is. I never had got around to looking into it more deeply. (More interested in the chemistry of meterorites than their orbital preferences.)

We have limited freedom action. More than an electron in an Carbon s-orbital, but less than.......well, so far we don't know if there is a less than.

We might also wish to consider that it relates to a sense of personal worth for some individuals. They will be there on the day of judgement. They are of the chosen. For others it may help explain what they see as a world "gone to hell in a handbasket". Others may just be morbid prats. I doubt that there is a single explanation. Anyway, since you are all figments of my imagination I wouldn't dwell on it too much.

It is not a matter of proof, it is a matter of probabilities. We know that comets contain substantial amounts of water. We know that there are many comets. We know that comets do impact the planets. We know that a portion of the water will be retained by the planet. We know that parts of Mercury are not exposed to sunlight. Now we have found water in such locations. The reasonable presumption is that the source is comets. It is reasonable to consider other possibilities. However, there appears to be less evidence for your proposal than the current standard one.

Cooperation, from the cellular level, up to the level of the biosphere, is at least as important as conflict and selfishness. I'm sorry that random factors in your own life have led you to an alternate conclusion.

inow I just gave you a like when I was aiming for the quote function on your post to tell you that you are talking bollocks. Planets are not falling into the sun, even slowly. As the sun is losing mass throught coronal mass ejections and the solar wind planets are in fact, ever so slowly, moving further away from the sun. Perhaps you could join as a sock puppet and give yourself a negative rep to counteract my mistake.

Mike, I think you can save yourself the effort. The words that may have confused you are, I think, really there. when the Earth was in other Galaxy; stages II, III, IV - when the Earth casually appeared in Solar system The post appears to be from a gentleman with a very peculiar understanding of geology. I recommend leaving well alone.

As is often the case wikipedia come to the rescue. Reactions that take place on polar stratospheric clouds (PSCs) play an important role in enhancing ozone depletion.[8] PSCs form more readily in the extreme cold of Antarctic stratosphere. This is why ozone holes first formed, and are deeper, over Antarctica. The reactions referred to are the catalytic destruction of ozone by halocarbons (CFCs, halons and freons).

I have no expectation of convincing you, but I do think you are mistaken, Evidence for God is circumstantial, but it is there. It is insufficient to convince me, which is why I am agnostic, but it exists. Specifically: 1. The universe does exist. It seems rather odd that there should be something rather than nothing. One suspects the need for a First Cause, which we might as well call God. When you ask me what caused God, I have no idea: turtles all the way down? 2. Not only does the universe exist, but it is aware of its existence. That is bizarre. One can imagine a non-sentient First Cause producing a non-sentient universe, but a sentient universe rather seems to demand a sentient First Cause, i.e. God. Points 1 and 2 might be seen as variants of the Design Argument of William Paley. It is fashionable to dismiss this work today, but Darwin admired it, carried it with him on the Beagle (I think) and structured Origin on its basis. An outright rejection of Evidences seems cavalier. 3. There is an intriguing argument that we may be part of a computer simulation. That would make the programmer, or programming team, God. 4. The argument against fine tuning of the universe for life has never been properly refuted (or properly proven), Together, and to some degree even individually, these are all sufficient reason - in my view - to keep an open mind. I do not see a similar array of evidence for faeries and none at all for unicorns. Do note that I think none of this constitutes evidence for a Christian style God. Such a God might be more appropriately compared with faeries and unicorns. (But if that is the sort of God you are arguing against then I fear you have allowed your thinking.to be corrupted by the very existence of religion. )

There are two categories of atheism. There are those who have never believed, or have never sincerely believed. They match the group that most posters here have been referring to. It is passive non-belief. Then there are those who have 'lost their faith' and 'found atheism'. There non-belief is an active thing. This second type may require more contemplation in order to continually sustain the justification for non-belief. That is not required in the first type, anymore than I require constant thinking to stay anchored to the Earth by gravity.

Interesting, but not evidence that water molecules constitute a portion of the solar wind, only that water molecules appear to exist on the sun. What evidence do you have that "superheated steam is blown onto Mercury by the sun"? And are you agreeing that the distribution of ice on solar system planetoids is as expected if it is derived from comets?

Do you feel that superheated steam is blown off the sun? Are you expecting cometary water to remain in the location of the impact site? That is not going to happen. The comet will vaporise on impact, or earlier if there is a substantial atmosphere.

Why do you assume that a creator would necessarily have any interest in humans? Life might be an incidental by-product of her creation.

This is very true. Now tell me, how many people have you seen die? I mean, I can't believe you aren't seeing people dying at least every minute or so. You must be surrounded by dead people, since - as you say - there are so many of them dying all the time. I'm not being sarcastic brandon, I'm trying to help you see the error in your thinking.