Moontanman

Then there is the idea that food crops are as they are because we modified them in ways that cause them to, at the very least, be much more inviting to wildlife as a food source than the original wild plant was. A domesticated plant in the wild is immediately targeted and eaten, their food value is much higher than wild plants and they stick out like sore thumbs because of this... only our intervention prevents them from being eaten. Possibly there are a few domesticated plants that could survive in the wild but I have my doubts on this idea... An abandoned garden, dozens of different food plants, allowed to go to seed with out being harvested, the next spring do any of the food crop plants come back up? Without our care would any of them even survive, I've seen this happen, the only things that reappear are some perennials like asparagus, it can come back over and over but I've never seen them spread... I'll Stop, this is so strange to me, after growing up on what just a dirt farm, no equipment other than horses and mules and human power, it's difficult to imagine the food crops we grew having any chance what so ever, even with near constant attention they often failed to grow...

Consider this thought experiment. A crystal rod is growing out of a solution, the rod grows only along one axis and it does so it gets longer but the rod it's self still exists away from the active crystallization site. I look at our awareness as the active site of crystallization the already crystallized rod is the past, the active site of "awareness" cannot travel back along the rod but the rod still exists... The future is still being crystallized and so has no real form other than potential... edited for spelling

Can i infer from this that you do not think that the universe has some existence independent of the observer? I'm not sure I know how to express this but I am going to try. Your assertion, to me at lease, seems to violate the general principles of relativity, from your point of view I can see a universal time, it's now everywhere, no past, no future, just now. Time obviously passes at different rates for different observes so how could there be a now any place but behind your eyes? Your idea would also seem to wipe away the past as though it is immaterial, My thoughts on this is that it's more likely the entire past and present exist but the future is similar to an uncollapsed wave function, something we have not measured yet and our consciousnesses, our awareness is limited to the present, memories of the past and guesses about the future. I think it's possible that awareness is simply our brains measurement of the future as it happens and it's quite possible we exist at every point along that life line and always will...

That is what I was trying to say Janus but you did a better job....

Yes but the insinuation that first contact must come from a different galaxy is a bit of a strawman isn't it? As CaptainPanic pointed out There are many stars with in a reasonable distance from us, "one or two" of the most interesting lie 4.5 light years away, two sun like stars high metal content and quite possible two planetary systems. While I don't really expect a flying saucer to land on the White House lawn anytime soon to say we will never even make radio contact is more than a bit pessimistic I think...

Thanks for the information on that, I was unaware of the link between corn and Teosinte. Thanks for clearing the up the sterility thing, for some reason i was reading it that one of the dangers of current GM plants was hybridization. The sterile thing seemed to be separate somehow... I still think they idea of food crops escaping into the wild is less than supported, you jump from food crops to domestic plants but I see a slight difference being that while all food crops are domesticated not all domesticated plants are food crops. Some domesticated plants escape into the wild with out help, transferring something like herbicide resistance to elephant ear would be a bad thing... I don't think it needs it... even where it's grown for food... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taro This stuff is going wild where I live, we used to be too far north...

That's a great post dude...

Of course there is a point to life but if you comb your hair right no one will notice.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PQ6335puOc How can you find anything if you have ceased to exist?

There are lots of stuff I hate about liberals but most of it is stuff that i consider to be nutty and not deserving of any real consideration. The whole idea that the liberal tent is big enough to cover everyone is at the root of the problem...

I think that's a legitimate question, if the GM plants are sterile then how can they pollinate wild relatives? there are no wild maze plants btw... and the idea that GM corn or potatoes or any other GM plant might take over the wild is a bit of fear mongering isn't it?

No not at all, I actually mistook him for someone else, Colonel West has his own problems, i wonder if you would have been so active in your attack if Cenk had been taking crap about Obama, he gives him hell regularly...

Agreed I live in area of the country with tree farms, as they are cut they are replanted in huge swaths, square miles of tree farms, most people assume they are natural forests but if you look close as you drive by you can see they are miles and miles of straight rows of trees... Oh yeah, they are owned by International Paper Co. Actually I have, mostly online to be honest but more than a few times in real life I've been accused of somehow being disrespectful of someones religious beliefs when they were trying to preach to me on the street, this has happened when people knock on my door to bring me the good news as well... In line at the grocery store, at the license plate store, any place I stand in line... Sometimes I think I attract these nutters...

WOW! What a reaction, do you watch FOX News?

So, the truth of the matter matters not to you but the the fact that you don't like the message bearer is more important? Rigney, i can't believe you would rather accept lies than the truth no matter where it comes from... Sometimes the truth is not what we want to believe and sometimes it's brought by people we don't like but the facts speak for themselves...

Ancestor worshipers might disagree... What is the cause of a particular atom decaying? No the Judeo_Christian god does not have any evidence, none... Why can the cause not be something natural and explainable? Why does it have to be a god? What then would you call evidence? Confirming there is no god would require god like powers of knowledge, it will never happen, but that doesn't support the existence of a god, but he will be pushed into smaller and smaller places... http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abioprob/originoflife.html#homochirality Genesis makes the claim that god created all animals to reproduce after their own kind, there is no wiggle room for evolution on the scale we see in the fossil record... How about the prophecies that did not come true, one real big one would be this Again I ask what would be evidence of abiogenesis you would accept? I do appreciate you watching those videos but I am puzzled as to how they or the processes described are not evidence.... What would you consider evidence?

I honestly don't know if i should laugh or cry...

i think he is asking why dark matter doesn't concentrate into black holes like matter does and the reason is... because dark matter doesn't radiate away energy the way matter does and so can't condense around black holes the way matter does...

This is one of my pet peeves as well, i reuse every plastic grocery bag and while I understand that paper decomposes and all that it's not like the plastic bags aren't being used in some constructive way. The look some people seem to get when you leave the store with dozens of plastic bags and they are using reusable bags and buying paper bags is classic... I find myself thinking about banning the use of plastic bottles in favor of reusable glass bottles but it's difficult to completely support that idea. The whole idea that using disposable paper plates is somehow a bad thing grates me big time. i tend to shy away from plastic plates, mostly due to not being sure how much of an impact they have compared to if not recyclable at least sustainable paper plates... But the worst in my mind is the whole organic scam. The idea that somehow anything labeled organic is somehow superior to anything else. Petroleum, is natural, and organic but I don't wan to eat or drink it... The whole idea that I must somehow edit my conversation so as to never piss anyone or group of anyone's is more than a bit annoying. Actively spouting hateful things just for shock value is not part of my behavior but the idea that i can't be critical of other peoples point of view without being considered hate speech bothers me quite a bit especially so since the groups i am most likely to be critical of don't seem to be held to the same standard...

Is there actually a method that can currently be deployed to do something about derelict satellites? It looks like a problem that doesn't have much incentive as far as financial goes...

Today I was watching a UFO show on Netflicks, UFOs: The Secrete History, it was made in 2010 and I had never seen it before, i thought I had pretty much seen them all. if you have any interest at all about UFOs I would highly recommend it. I follows the UFO phenomena from the Kenneth Arnold sightings in 1947 and across the early to mid 80's. I learned a few things I didn't know and the documentary covers everything from disturbingly credible to outrageously crazy... One of the things pointed out is that the very first UFO government report asserted "flying saucers are real" and goes on to assert that they are "interplanetary space craft". The Washington merry go round, where UFOs were seen on radar by ground observers and by military pilots as the UFOs flitted around the air space of our Nations Capital was very interesting. Also discussed is the Military's attempt at debunking UFOs at any cost via ridicule and derision which started with Project Grudge. People physically affected by UFOs, burns and poisoning, and sightings by military personal which are well documented. One particularly interesting sighting was a helicopter which had a large UFO hover over the helicopter as it flew at night, the UFO shone a bright light on the helicopter and was so close the pilot was fearful of a rotor strike. It was explained as a "slow" moving meteor... Great documentary...

I'm not sure that would mean i would vote for him no matter what his politics was but it does give me respect for him.

Thank you, I have often wondered about that, I guess for illustration purposes a sphere makes sense but in recent years I've seen more of the diffused location type illustrations for particles like electrons, I was wondering if or which was more accurate. I know things like protons have internal structure then the nucleus has several of those and atoms are imaged as vaguely roundish or as peaks. What about things like photons?

I can smell money dripping off Drunken Dinosaur Jousting... Gentlemen fire up your dinosaurs...

Can electrons and photons or any other particle be said to have an actual shape? They are portrayed as spheres in any illustration but aren't they more blurry locations?

Edit: Rigney, I am embarrassed, I totally, totally, got this wrong, I owe both you and Allen West an apology, it was Herman Cain that was accused of sexual assault, not Allen West, I am very sorry for my mistake, my mind is evidently turning to mush much quicker than i thought in my old age. Again I apologize. I don't know how I could hake that mistake, it is indeed embarrassing..