gib65

Right. Technically, IQ can't change. But mental age can. IQ is determined by mental age divided by chronological age. It's as if we were trying to measure the length of something that kept growing over time and so we adjusted the size of our ruler. Thanks for the article john5746.

Over the last 100 years or so, has the average IQ, as measured in schools by standard IQ tests (like the Stanford-Binet and the WAIS), been going up? If so, by how much? Has it beeing going up in adults as well as children? What would be the causes of this?

This debate (between JohnB and Chris C) seems to show that there isn't as much consensus among the scientific community as I'm lead by that community to believe. Are we or are we not certain that AGW is real? Do the AGW deniers have a reasonable case?

How far can neuronal axons reach within the brain? For example, have there been found single neurons that stretch from the occipital lobe all the way to the prefrontal cortex? Or maybe from the rightmost edge of the right temporal lobe to the leftmost edge of the left temporal lobe? I'm asking because I'm wonder if any arbitrary brain center can potentially stimulate (or inhibit) any other arbitrary brain center (by "arbitrary", I mean given that one doesn't know - not that everyone's brain is different).

My sentiments exactly.

That's true, but they still need information in order to make well throught out moves - even if it's for themselves. They still need to consults experts on whatever issue they're dealing with. I'm just wondering what kind of advisors they're surrouding themselves with. Do they at least get the right information?

Thanks Chris. Tell me something... Who are our world leaders listening to? Are they listening to the actual experts, real climatologists and IPCC members, or are they just going on their own opinions or misinformed sources like the great majority of people?

Thanks for everyone's replies. Those are helpful. I found an article on that Martial polar ice caps melting: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html There's this one quote that says:

Nothing bugs me more than global warming deniers except being lied to about global warming. Who exactly is lying is something I can't say, but someone definitely is. I want to start this thread so that I can post articles I've come across contradicting the evidence in support of global warming and/or the anthropocentric account of it. I don't know who to trust and I feel like a helpless child in a custody battle - who gets to convert me over to their side? - and I feel like shouting out "Just tell me the goddam truth!!!" I'll accept the words of the noble scientists on SFN, but that's not to say I won't challenge them. I'll take whatever you say and pit it against the words of others on other forums and then come back with more fodder for debate. I hope that over the long haul, some meaningful picture will emerge that explains the riff between the data and the misconceptions that appear on both sides so that a most-plausible-scenario can be built for me to latch onto. In short, the goal of this thread is to build for myself (and others) a more firm foundation on which to take a stand on the GW issue and to stick to it on grounds other than blind faith or ignorance. It seems so hard to do this on this issue though because of all the conflicting reports and my lack of expertise in both the subject and my BS detection skills. So here's a couple articles to start: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/2871 This one claims that the steady increase in the average yearly global temperature in a myth, that... This blatantly contradicts Gore's claim that the average yearly global temperature has been increasing at an alarming rate well into the 21st century, 2005 (I think it was) marking a global record. http://washingtontimes.com/article/20080506/EDITORIAL/404827900/1013 This one claims that the supposed consensus among climatologists and other relevant experts is fraudulent. It says that a significant number of scientists don't want to voice their assessments on the anthropocentric question in fear of being ridiculed or losing their jobs, and that a high number of dissenters come from within the circle of experts itself. Another point I'd like to know more about (which I don't have an article on unfortunately) is the melting of the Martian polar ice caps that seems to be happening at the same rate and in parallel to all the GW symptoms here on Earth. This can't be explained by anthropocentrism, but it easily can by sunspot theories. I'm not taking sides here. How can I when I have no idea how to sieve the facts from the bull shit? I want to challenge the GW naysayers, but not because I'm taking up a contrary position, just because that seems to be the only way to force people to backup their claims with something substantial.

I find fringe mathematics fascinating. There are equations like e^(pi*i) = -1 that boggle my mind and proofs for how 0.999... = 1 that just amaze me. I thought it would be cool to start a thread for people to post proofs/facts/interesting problems in math that warp our common sense notions about how numbers work. I'll start with the proof that .999[bar]=1 (where [bar] denotes an infinite series): x=.999[bar] 10x=9.99[bar] 10x-x=9.99[bar]-.999[bar] 9x=9 x=1

Maybe I should, but this isn't a professional paper. It's a personal/recreational paper on my philosophies of mind and brain. Technically, I could cite not a single soure if I really wanted to, although that probably wouldn't go over well with others. But I'm not that lazy. I plan to add sources and documentation as I come across them on a casual basis. I'm fairly certain about the things I say (remembering that I learnt it elsewhere but can't put my finger on when or where). If I learn that anything I say is dreadfully wrong, I'll rewrite it, of course, but most of the stuff that should have sources is more to support the major philosophical points I'm making, but these points aren't totally dependent on them. It's a casual thing.

Yes, I suspected as much. I was being overly simplistic in my first statement (somewhat on purpose, admittedly). I'll be cleaning that up accordingly. But it's really the next part I'm interested in: http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v9/n6/abs/nn1706.html Since I posted this, I also found the wiki article on Hebbian Theory quite valuable, especially this quote:

Here's a passage from a paper I'm writing:

Thanks iNow

Does anybody know what the main neuro-chemical(s) or horomone(s) are that are most closely associated with depression? What I mean is, in those who suffer from depression, what is the chemical that is found in excess while in a depressed state (or is it a deficiency in some chemical)? What about happiness? Also, is there an online chart listing the neuro-chemicals/horomones most closely associated with the whole set of human emotions? Or is this question too vague?

I'm sorry, iNow, I knew my question was a difficult one to ask even when I was writing it. Maybe this will help: the direction left doesn't "pass" in any meaningful sense, but time does.

I was just wondering if psychoanalysts have any right to interpret hallucinations in a symbolic way. At first, I would think a hallucination is just a chemical imbalance, and if the right chemicals bind to the right neural receptors, one could hallucinate anything. But even a chemical imbalance doesn't mean there is no symbolic significance. A chemical imbalance might only set the stage for hallucination to occur, but the content of those hallucinations might still be influenced by unconscious or personal factors.

In some of the early literature on psychoanalysis, there are reports of patients having hallucinations of one kind or another (vidual, auditory, etc.), and the analysis is that these hallucination symbolically represent repressed content in the unconscious. A lot of psychoanalysis has been discredited today, but I'm wondering if there's still anything to this. Can hallucinations carry any symbolic significance, or are they more or less random?

Ah, so they did evolve on the farm. So they're "retarded" wolves?

I understand that the pig survives easily because it is under the providence of a farmer (or some human care giver). But was this always the case? Did the pig evolve on the farm? There must have been a time when the pig had to live off the land, to fend for itself in the wild? But just look at the pig? What features does it have to survive and defend itself? It has no claws, it can't run very fast, it has no fangs, it can't climb trees, it has no warm fur coat, it doesn't camouflage very well, etc. How did it ever survive the menaces of the natural world?

Thanks for the answers.

If you took red light (700nm) and mixed it with green light (400nm), would the resulting light have a wavelength of about 550nm (which would be a yellowish orange) - or would it just be an overlap of red and green light, the only "yellow/orange" coming about after the physiological effects have produced the perception of it? Putting this another way, I'm asking if the mixing of colors is a phenomenon that happens only at the level of our physiology (i.e. the visual system) or does it happen in very physics of light?

Oh, it's an inequality - that explains it.

It's not. What's a violation is when you have: delta x * delta y = constant but allowing delta x and delta y to both be very large.

The HUP says that the more precision with which you measure position, the less precisely can you know momentum, and visa-versa. What if you're not measuring either? What can be said of a particle's position and momentum in that case? Are they both equally (and highly) uncertain? Well, of course they are - if you don't measure either, how can you know either? - but aren't quantum physicists in the habit of taking epistemological statements and treating them as interchangeable with ontological ones? I mean, wouldn't a hardnosed positivist say that if you don't know either the particle's position or its momentum, then it actually has neither to any precision? And if that's so, doesn't this pose as an exception to the HUP as it is mathematically expressed (i.e. as an indirect proportionality)?