Moontanman

If at some future date we found a giant star with one or maybe even several planets in it's life zone, large stars have a very broad life zone, would it be ethical to terraform these planets and colonize them knowing the star will blow up in a couple million years?

As long as you don't a positive assertion that what you are saying is true and stick with it's what you believe... then... it's what you believe... I can only point out it's just a belief... So you are going with "God of the gaps" Are you really going to retreat down that rat hole? The idea of god of the gaps is nothing but intellectual dishonesty. Or there was no big bang.. the question is still open... but requiring god as the cause is simply baseless speculation.. Again, because science hasn't explained everything god can hide in the tiny spaces between knowledge? Knowledge, is something very specific science has proven track record of providing knowledge, our entire first world civilization is based on the knowledge science has provided. Scientific speculation can discussed but we can also provide evidence as to why the speculation is true or false. Metaphysical speculation can indeed claim anything and has no way to show it is true or false, so far metaphysics has provided no knowledge to our civilization ... none what so ever... It only makes assertions that cannot be checked as to there veracity in any way, it's mental masturbation, how many angels can dance on the tip of an invisible unicorn's horn? What purpose would that information serve? You can speculate all you want but when you make a positive assertion then you have to have evidence, if you assert real knowledge then you have to back that up with real evidence, it's quite simple... Intellectual honesty would be a good reason not to assert such an unfounded idea... it's a chance it's a miracle hardly constitutes anything but what you want it to be... it's a chance the universe is the flatulence of some creature that is totally unaware it's farts turn into universes...

Actually no, first of all a planets core is composed of mostly iron due to it's density and other chemical reactions as well, magnesium would not find it's way into the core and cobalt is so rare it wouldn't be abundant enough to be significant even if chemical processes allowed it to sink to the core. Also magnetic fields would not be that strong, even a neutron star or magnetar would have to be quite close to have that much magnetic effect and it's gravity would far out weigh any magnetic effects. Again decide on what you want the back drop to be, don't worry about absolute scientific accuracy, it's a back story to a video game. Just make it internally consistent and concentrate on the story's Characters and plot...

Immortal, until you can give some evidence for god your constant assertions of his power are lame and not worthy of a science site...

Tell me which definition of god you are using, then we can debate this... The Abrahamic God, at least for Muslims and Christians, does indeed specify one punishment for all crimes, heaven or hell. no other choice is suggested....

No, one punishment for all crimes is unjust, suggesting it isn't because of some unknown possibility is simply speculation with no supporting evidence what so ever...

The idea of eternal punishment pretty much shows god is, if nothing else, totally unjust.. the rest is window dressing, if god is unjust then he is not worthy of worship even if he does exist... How can you tell what an unjust god really wants, if he lies then how can you trust him, it's all silly horse feathers.... I am sure that quote was meant for the US not the world, or I may have misquoted it and it meant that 95% of scientists are theist of some kind, china and india both have a large theistic population. I was out of town today and i just got back a while a go but I will look for the quote and see exactly what it said... Thinking on it I am pretty sure it wasn't 95% are christian but 95% are religious in some way... I apologize for the confusion

You do realize that 95% of Scientists are theists... right? Most are Christian, One of the most famous and respected paleontologists in the world is a Pentecostal Preacher. The idea that scientists by definition are atheists is simply not true. This is a lie made up by theists who cannot break away from the idea that the Bible has to be the inerrant word of god or god is a liar and all religions are false...

I understand that but I honestly think these two threads were really more of a troll than a real request for home work help. The questions were loaded, and reveled the OP's, or the person who put them up to it, personal biases. The only reason i answered i and i think many others as well, was the off chance that the two people might actually take a step back and look at what they are being taught. These Christian schools turn out people with degrees that are about as real as "I have a PHD in Truthology from Christian tech" it's sad, any person with an iota of a realistic world view or self respect or even respect for others would refuse to even admit to such a silly degree. One of these "christian colleges" (this is not an isolated case, there are many of these christian diploma mills) is really a small building in the middle of nowhere where preachers and pastors send off for their PHD's which are based on what they believe about the Bible not any real knowledge. Then they use these fake PHD's to exploit the gullible and less than knowledgeable people for their own gain. It gets next to me, knowledge is often hard won, it takes real effort, the people who actually work to obtain this knowledge deserve respect for that fact alone. It's difficult to not be insulted by the shenanigans of these people, possibly that is a character flaw on my part...

Darwinism and a few others explained http://www.youtube.com/user/AronRa#p/c/126AFB53A6F002CC/11/2TkY7HrJOhc

I think it might be reasonable to say the night sky of such a planet, considering the particle radiation Sirius would emit, would be alive with auroras from pole to pole, it would be like the sky was on fire...

No electromagnetic radiation is not affected by magnetic fields. No problem, any time.... just ask. A planet around Sirius, if it had a magnetic field, should have awesome auroras...

It's doubtful anything from Earth could grow at all in the UV flux of Sirius, but ignore that, you can propose and unusually thick ozone layer or something if it becomes important. I do understand the symbolism and it's cool, ignore the facts about Sirius, go with bluer light than our sun and no one will notice if the game is good. I've read weirder books that were great, try Larry Niven's "The Integral Trees" for a real mind blower. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Integral_Trees

I'd be interested in seeing it but I am not anyone of any authority so i am not any better to judge than you are. As for dead forests, how did they grow to start with? it's interesting to note that Sirius B is a white dwarf orbiting at about the distance of Uranus in our system. In relatively recent past, as cosmic times goes, it was a star even more massive than Sirius so it would have been even hotter and bluer. When it went off the main sequence it would have no doubt destroyed any planets of either star but it raises another possibility. It ejected many giga tons of metals back into space, it makes Sirius 7.5 times as metal rich as our sun, metals, in astronomy anything heavier than helium is a metal but in this case it means actual heavy elements but the dying star would have no doubt driven away lighter elements so you might get a planet from the debris that was huge, dense, with high gravity and still have a reasonably thin atmosphere, a planet the size of Uranus or Neptune but with maybe a few dozen bar atmosphere of mostly hydrogen many times the gravity of earth, oceans, hydrogen atmosphere, it might make for some interesting bio chemistry... ignoring of course how young the planet would be but hey it's your universe, if you want it.. it can happen...

So i am guessing you didn't bother to read either of the links? Sirius is the one that sends out the UV... Sirius isn't old enough to have evolved complex life forms, it's less than a half billion years old but in fantasy you can do anything. It's really the back story that counts, the details are just a back drop for the story, even in a video game... but red absorbs blue light, it's why red algae is red, sunlight filtered by sea water is blue shifted, go deep enough and blood looks green because there is no red light to reflect to your eyes... Don't worry about being scientifically accurate, just be consistent, moving Atlantis to a planet around Sirius pretty much blows science out of the water so go with what you want, just don't be contradictory and you get my respect...

The formation of Israel was conquer and claim, not a battle for independence...

http://www.solstation.com/stars/sirius2.htm http://www.exoplaneten.de/sirius/english.html The pigment chlorophyll is so basic to complex plants it's difficult to really speculate on this, the probability is almost certainly close to zero this could change in any reasonable amount of time, secondary pigments would be more likely and the bluer light of Sirius would probably select for the color red not purple... even for this 6,000 years is improbable... it's doubtful any earth plant could survive the UV flux at the surface of any planet orbiting Sirius close enough to have liquid water.

Ok, I like my science fiction to at least be consistent if not accurate... I would love to hear how that is justified with science. No, not in 4000 years... No place, not enough time for something as basic as the pigment for photosynthesis to change significantly. No problemo... One thing to remember, if i remember correctly, Sirius radiates a huge amount of UV radiation, more than it does visible light...

Again, what exactly do you mean by that? We can agree on most of this, sadly it's not the general consensus among the theistic population, mostly i think because of the influence of the Christian evangelical movement and the mega churches which preach the infallible word of god as though it is obviously true and everyone who doesn't believe in the word of god is crazy or evil or both... polls show that atheists are less well thought of than any other category of people in the US... and not by some tiny margin either... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m1NfhZ8Uc0 And I agreed with you on religion for the most part but I am a bit more militant that you evidently... These things are subject to opinion? Wiping slavery out of text books because it slanders the founding fathers? Civil rights heroes? Treatment of Native Americans? Global warming? Striking mention of certain founding fathers because they are too liberal? Editing history to conform to Conservative facts? Give me a break....

Logically, North America would go back to the Native Americans, not the bloody British, French, Spaniards or anyone else from Europe but 500 years is a bit long to be retroactive. I wasn't suggesting this was a logical course of action but taking away land or a country just because you are a bigger bastard than the other guy is not the way I personally would like to see the world go. It's most certainly not the way i want to see the US go and the USA has at least shown that to be the way we assert our political influence (sometimes), we helped kick Germany out of the rest of Europe, we helped kick Japan out of the rest of the Pacific we kicked Iraq out of Kuwait, although i think it is disingenuous to say it was totally because we wanted to help them but be that as it may either people have real personal rights or they don't and might makes right, which is it? If might makes right then it's time to haul out the big penis shaped missiles and start waving them at each other again.... Which is it? Does it depend on who the aggressor is? If it's one of our back door buddies then they get to do what ever they want but if it's someone we don't like then we jump in and defend the little guy? One or the damn other, we need to be consistent, far too long we supported the governments who did what we wanted and screw the people but we claim that people should have rights, does it only apply to Americans or is it a goal for the whole world to respect human rights? It's time to take a side i think.... The nearly blind support Israel has received over the years has been insane, hell they attacked on of our ships and we let it go, they killed American sailors and no it was not an accident, do you think if Iran sank one of our ships we would let it go even if it was an accident? I am not looking for Israel to be destroyed or anything silly like that but the idea they can do no wrong is plain bullshit and the idea that they have the right to Palestine due to the word of god is an insult to humanity... On the other hand Palestinians are no prize either, suicide bombers, constant missile strikes, the inflexibility of stupidly thinking that Allah will destroy Israel, both sides act like a bunch of unruly children pointing and crying the other side is the bad guys, they both have deep faults and it's time we recognized that... It's time they recognized that or just get it over with and let the biggest bastard kill everyone.... hell maybe it is preordained that part of the world will be the catalyst for global war one more time but as Einstein said WW4 will be fought with sticks...

I have never said that, it's religion in america that feels that way and is working toward that goal not the US government, but they do influence the US government. Did you not read the link i gave? Do i have to google more, the supreme court had to rule on this at least once, local courts have dealt with this many times I'm just stunned by your naivete' the teaching of creationism is not just opposed by atheists... You hope our public schools remain unbiased about those kind of issues, what exactly do you mean by that?

I have to say that i have heard the term Darwinists being used to describe anyone who believes in evolution quite a bit of late and not by just opponents of creationism, professional creationists like Ray Comfort, Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, and their ilk use the term regularly. But to be honest, being dishonest and misleading and misrepresenting science is how these guys make their living...

I think you are correct your comment was on topic as far as it goes but think of this, the land now called Israel was not empty, People lived there, real flesh and blood people who were kicked out of their homes and off their land because they were not Jews. You use the term "force their way in" that is just wrong, they were already there! Their homes were bulldozed and people were killed. If it was not due to religion then why were these people made to leave when the Israel took over the land, what was it if not due to religion? At first Israel kicked Christians out too until they realized their survival depended on the support Christian nations like the good old US of A... It's mostly American Christian fundamentalists who claim Israel has claim to be there there by the word of god.... I often wonder how these jack asses who think Israel has the right to exist because god said so would feel if people of my ancestry made claim that the Great Spirit gives us title to the continental United States.... and we started kicking them out of their homes... hell the bastards used biological warfare against us... but we weren't really human, we were just godless savages....

How does someone else holding these extreme beliefs make it ok for others to do so? Do you live in the USA? Local governments have been fighting tooth and toenail to teach creationism as real science in schools for as long as I've been aware of what going to school means, I can still remember having to stand in a corner because i refused to accept Noah's ark as real, in public school! The latest big case, the ID supporters were so sure it would pass court scrutiny because the Judge was a conservative Christian but they had there asses handed to them because in the words of the judge they were dishonest and lied. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitzmiller_v._Dover_Area_School_District But this stuff goes on in a small scale all over the place, locally where i live it's a constant battle to keep this creation crap out of the schools... The big creationist gurus actually give classes in how to argue this stuff in front of school boards and generally the school board members don't have a clue as to what real science is and apes giving birth to humans or cats having puppies is something they aren't prepared to argue... And then there is this....