Edtharan

What about the moon? It's moving away slowly.

The angular velocity of the Earth is slowing down. This is where the energy is coming form.

You tying the objects together with a strong bond means that ALL of that mass has to be accelerated as a whole, where separate objects have less mass, less inertia, and a greater acceleration rate, because the NET FORCE is greater, and that means a greater acceleration and lower elapsed time.

So, what happens if you have two objects (A Feather and a Hammer) tied together by a Rope so that initially, the Feather and Hammer are initially allowed to move freely (ie the rope is slack).

As the Feather falls faster, it will eventually move away from the Hammer, and tighten the Rope.

At the point, just before this, say the Feather was moving at 2m/s and the Hammer was moving at 1m/s

When the Rope goes tight, the Inertia of the Feather should transfer some of its motion to the Hammer along the Rope as the faster motion of the Feather pulls the Hammer. Also, the Hammer should slow down the Feather as it is moving Slower (essentially the Feather looses some of its kinetic energy and it is transferred to the Hammer).

So the Hammer should speed up and the Feather should slow down. A balance should then be reached where the Hammer and Feather both travel at the same speed (because if they weren't then one would pull on the other and either speed it up or slow it down).

But, this means that the combined object of the Hammer and Feather (and rope), has to be faster than the Hammer as the Hammer has been sped up by the motion of the Feather as it pulled on it. It also means that it has to be slower than the Feather as the Hammer has pulled on it.

BUT, you state that the system should be SLOWER than the Hammer because the combined mass is greater than the Hammer.

This is where your theory fails.

However, if we assume that all objects fall at the same rate (when started from the same height), then we do not run into this problem at all.

Parachutists know the exact phenomena I am talking about. A Parachute will fall at a slower rate than a person without a Parachute and that if they are joind, then they will fall at a rate faster than the slowest speed and slower than the fastest speed (yes I know it is due to air resistance not gravity, but what I am using this analogy for is to point out that if objects falling at different rates are joined, then the resulting final speed will be slower than the fastest and faster than the slower speed).

This occurs because the Faster moving object pulls on the Slower moving object making it go faster, and the Slower moving object pulls on the Faster moving object making it go slower until they both reach the same speed.

Your theory can not work because of this effect. As this effect is well know and really does occur (the reality check of science), then your theory can not possible be correct.

I was trying to see if anyone had any other ideas besides creation and evolution. To me it seems creationists and evolutionists are one and the same. Both ideas sound good. Both have their own flaws. Both seem to believe in their theories without a doubt. Both are extreamly narrow minded. Both promote and represent their theories to the fullest (as I look at alot of your sigs). Both parties continue to push their ideas on their opponents and call one another fools. And don't lie to me and tell me that you guys don't bicker. If I came in here spitting some creationist ideas this thread would be about 30 pages long. And please don't tell me my question is identical to some creationist ploy. It is not even about that. I'm just trying to see who thinks what up in here. See if there are any open minded people in here. And nah I dont believe that aliens came down and created life or whatever, lol. Although some people do. (tom cruise)

If you only focus on the behaviours of the individuals, then yes, the behaviours of the two sides is similar. But this is to be expected, they are engaging in a debate, and since they are engaging in the same behaviour (a debate), then naturally their behaviours will be similar.

You know, I have seen people acting like that over football teams, dose this mean that football teams are the same as evolution or creationism?

What you have to look at is not the behaviours of the people (theyare engaged in the same activity after all, but instead look at the evidence that they present about their arguments.

Creationists don't present any reliable evidence (that is the "evidence" is based off opinions). However, Scientists use experimentation (ie reality checks) as their evidence.

Science says that: If we can demonstrate that this phenomena occurs in reality, then it is good evidence that it does occur in reality.

This is the difference between the two arguments. And it is a big difference.

I agree that the behaviours of (some) people in the Evolution/Creationism debate are similar, but just because they have similar behaviours, does not make the arguments the same.

Again, let me demonstrate:

If you saw a person in a Hawaiian shirt giving money to a Busker (street musician) in the street, could you then conclude that the behaviour of wearing a Hawaiian shirt means that all people who wear Hawaiian shirts is to give money to Buskers?

This is a logical fallacy, that you assume that because one (or a few) aspect(s) of a situation are similar, then any situations that share those same aspects must therefore have all of their aspects the same?

Here is it: Package Deal Fallacy (link to wikipedia)

Traveller, I have a few questions:

If I were to drop a Hammer, Feather and a Piece of String, would they all fall at different rates to each other?

If I then tie the feather tightly to the hammer with the piece of string, how does this effect the fall rate of the objects?

As the combined masses of the Hammer, Feather and String mean that the mass of this new object, being closer to that of the planet Earth than any of them are by themselves, falls at a faster rate or a slower rate?

Does the fall rate average out between the three objects (is slows down compared to the hammer by its self, but falls faster than the feather does by its self)?

How would this fall rate compare to an object that was the same mass, but not actually separate objects tied together?

This last question is important. As the The String is Heavier than the Feather, the Hammer is heavier than the String, and the Combined mass is heavier than the Hammer by its self.

If your formula is correct then the trend in variation of fall rates at the mass increases should continue, so the combined object should continue the trend of increasing of mass.

But.

Why then would they fall at a different rate, just because there were or were not tied together? Tying an object to another does not actually change any physical properties of the object like mass. In fact, when you look at the objects on the atomic scale, even if they are tied together, they are not actually physically touching. Even the atoms of the objects themselves are not physically touching, but bound together by electrical attractions, and can be considered separate (like when they are not tied together)

So in that sense, how could tying something together change its rate of falling?

If the rate of falling does not change when they are tied together, then it proves your formula wrong (as that is what you and your formula say). But the mass of an object can't effect the rate of falling, because if you increased the mass by tying them together, at the atomic level they are not really the same object.

It used to be thought that different objects fell faster because they were heavy. But this same argument (about tying object together) showed that that idea did not make any sense, as the act of tying together objects should make them fall faster than either of them alone, but if the objects were only loosely tied together, then each would fall at their own rate and the object as a whole should simultaneously fall faster than either of them.

How can an object fall simultaneously at two different rates?

It is the same problem that your idea has. Tying two objects together should make them fall at a different rate than they would by themselves, but if you loosely ties them, then they should fall at the original rates but as they re tied together they should also be falling at the rate dictated by their combined masses.

How can an object fall at two different rates simultaneously?

does anyone here not believe that we desended from apes

I don't believe that we descended from Apes. But by that I mean I am not basing my opinion in belief.

From the evidence (fossils, genetics, evolution, etc, etc, etc) the most likely conclusion is that we did descend from Apes.

My opinion (that we did indeed descend from Apes) is based not on belief, but on evidence.

The fit and the unfit always co-exist in every species.

Lets talk turtles.

On the Islands of Galapagos there are turtles. And they can move from one island to another, although not easily or often (but they can do it).

On some islands, there is almost no low bushes (a small amount, but not much), on other islands there are lots of low bushes. This is due to some islands being more drought prone than others. On the drought prone islands small bushes can't store enough water to survive the drought and so die.

These turtles are vegetarians. That is they eat bushes.

So if both islands start off with the same species of turtle (or turtles from one island move to the other). Then we have two separate populations of turtles (although the same species, and in fact if they moved across, then the parents of one turtle could be on the other island ).

Now with the turtles on the dry island with few low bushes, there is just enough food for the turtles to survive. However, if one turtle gets a mutation in their DNA that creates wobbles in the edge of the shell (this might actually be a bad mutation in another place as the turtles might not have as much protection from predators).

At first, this wobble is random, but over time, if this wobble occurred in a place that allowed the neck of the turtle to reach up higher, then that turtle would be able to eat the taller bushes and not be restricted to the lower bushes.

Now, an animal that doe snot get much to eat will be weak from hunger, but those turtles that can reach the higher bushes will be able to get more food and so not be as hungry and so be more stronger.

Now turtles have to fight for a mate, and the stronger turtle gets to mate.

Now we have turtles that can't reach the higher bushes and so are weaker because they aren't getting as much to eat, and other turtles with the wobble in the shells edge that allows them to reach up higher and get more food and so not be as weak form hunger.

As it is the stronger turtle that mates, then these weak low shelled turtles would loose and the raised shell turtles will.

As the trait that causes the ridge is genetic, then these turtles will pass on that trait if the raised shell edge.

Because few of the low shelled turtles are breeding, then their offspring will not be represented well in the population.

If the high ridged turtles would successfully breed 5 times for every 1 time that the low shelled turtles did, and there is only a finite number of turtles that can live on the island (because of food or simply space) then eventually the population of low shelled turtles will become extinct on the island (because they have been out bred).

Now your premise was that the unfit co-exist with the fit. And as this example has shown, they can indeed, for a while. But given enough time and a finite population limit, then eventually the unfit will be out bred by the fit.

You see, once the population of low shelled turtles gets down to just a few individuals, then chance events could wipe them out. A predator gets lucky and catches one before it is aware of the predator and so can't protect itself. A drought kills off most of the low bushes and those that do survive are eaten by the more populous high shelled turtles and so the low shelled turtles literally have nothing to eat and so starve to death. Maybe a disease kills off 5% of all turtles on the island and all the low shelled turtles just happened to be effected. Or maybe none of the low shelled turtles breed with each other (they only bred with the high shelled turtles) and all offspring happen to be high shelled.

And so the short shelled turtles on the second island disappear and the only turtles left are the high shelled turtles.

This completely contradicts you statement that they always co-exist.

But lets also look at the numbers.

A turtle might lay around 12 eggs in each batch each year. They might be sexually active for 100 years and take 20 years to mature. That means that a turtle lays around 1200 eggs in their life.

If we start with a population of 1000 turtles, then these would have a combined number of offspring of 1,200,000.

However, we don't see those number of turtles on the Galapagos islands. We see far less. This means that the vast majority of the turtles have to have died.

How many?

Well for the population to remain stable (that is we don't end up seeing millions of turtles, or that they go extinct), then for every breeding pair, we need to have only 2 turtles survive to breed (some might be more, some might be less, this is just an average).

But a Turtle can lay up to 1200 eggs in their life time. That means 1198 turtles must die for every two turtles that you see alive.

That's a lot of dead turtles.

But the big question is, is it pure random chance that a turtle dies or lives, or is there some factor that is not random, but has some influence?

Well we know that turtle shells protect them from predators. And that some shell designs are worse than others (eg: if it curved upwards instead of downwards). And that the shell is the result of the turtles genetic code.

As the design of the shell is a non random factor that determines whether a turtle is more or less vulnerable to a predator, and the shell is a trait that is inherited (encoded in its genes), then shell designs that make the turtle more vulnerable to a predator will result in more of those turtles being killed than the turtles that have shells that protect them better.

ANY inheritable factor that give a non random change of increased survival will result in that trait becoming more prevalent in a finite population.

We don't have to wait millions of year to see this either:

Cane Toads were introduced into Australia in 1935.

In the years since their introduction they ahve spread quite rapidly throughout the Australian North East.

There is an inheritable variation in the lengths of their legs (ie if the parents have longer legs, the the offspring will have longer legs).

The longer the Legs of the Toads, the faster they can move.

If Cane Toads already occupy an area, then it is difficult for new arrivals to get enough food to survive or stake a breeding territory, this results in new arrivals not getting to breed as often.

Any offspring of the cane toads (whether short or long legged) will find it easier to find food and breeding territories at the edges of the established zone (this is what is driving their progress through Australia).

The toads have a distinct breeding season.

Lets put this together.

Because the toads have a distinct breeding season, then those that breed early will give their offspring an advantage over other toads as they will be able to grow into adults first and so successfully establish territories in the outskirts of the established zone before any other toads.

However, this trait will have spred long ago to all the toad populations as it is not something specific to the situation in Australia. But I need to state it as it puts the next bit into context.

The length of a toad's legs dictate how fast it can move. The longer the legs, the faster it can move. So those toads will longer legs will get to new territory and establish breeding sites first, preventing the shorter legged toads from getting many breeding sites (and so stop them breeding and passing on their short legged trait).

Over the years, this situation will repeat itself with each new generation, with the toads that have the longer legs passing on their trait of long leggedness to their offspring.

Prediction: Toads on the outskirts of the zone inhabited by the Cane Toad will have longer legs.

It has only been 73 years. This is within one persons life time.

If the Fit can co-exist with the Unfit, then we should see similar number of long legged and short legged cane toads where ever we look in the inhabited zone.

However, if you are wrong, and the Fit out competes the Unfit and there really is such a thing as Natural Selection, then my prediction (that you will find more toads with long legs in the outskirts of the inhabited zone) will occur.

More so, I will go one further and really go out on a limb here. IF evolution is correct, then not only will you get the longer legged (on average) toads on the outskirts of the inhabited area, but you will also get an increase in average leg size the further out from the point of introduction. That you will be able to chart their progress by looking at average leg sizes.

Well guess what. Toads on the outskirts of inhabited zone have significantly longer legs than the ones where they were introduced, and that there is a definite increase in size of cane toads legs the further away from the point of introduction.

This occurs ONLY if there is natural selection.

Natural Selection DOES occur.

because anyone who knows basic biology

Basics of DNA:

There are 4 base pairs:

Adenine (A)

Thymine (T)

Gaunine (G)

Cytosine ©

These are combined into triplets (that is 3s) to form a condon like this:

AAT : Asparagine

AGC : Aspartic acid

CGT : Arginine

TTG : Phenylalanine

ATG : Start Codon

AUG : Start Codon

UAG : Stop Codon

UAA : Stop Codon

UGA : Stop Codon

Each codon relates to a specific Amino Acid (and several sequences can code for the same amino acid) or a control codon.

Those last 5 are interesting. These are control codons. That is, between a pair of Start and Stop codons, the sequence of codons form a gene.

A gene encodes a sequence of Amino Acids, through RNA and the Ribosome.

These sequences of amino acids are called Proteins

Proteins themselves, or the produces that the proteins catalyse are what make up the material of our bodies.

So changes to the DNA will translate to changes in the Amino acid produced, and they in turn cause change to the protein produced.

So yes, I have a basic understanding of biology.

Now there is redundancy in this system, this means that changes in one don't necessarily cause a change in the other if the initial change was within one of these redundancies.

For instance, in the above list "CGT" codes for Arginine. But then so does CGU, CGA and CGC. All of these code for Arginine.

So if a mutation occurred in the original CGT where by it changed to CGA, then it would still code for Arginine.

But, then if in some other generation, another mutation occurred that change the now CGA into CUA, it would code for a completely different Amino Acid (Leucine).

So DNA, through mutations, can change its function.

That change in function can then translate up through the system to change the organism.

In other words, what was once one organism can change into another.

And how does a human gene "accidentally' get into ape genes?

So there is no fundamental difference between Ape DNA and Human DNA, other than the sequence and number of Base Pairs.

A common word game is to take one word and change it into another word simply by changing one letter at a time with the constraint that each new word you make as you do this, must be a valid word.

Try it. Start with the word: LIVED

And change it into the word: DEATH

Now, I bet when you did it, you randomly changed letters until you got one that worked. Then you would do this until you got another, and another, and another until you end up with the final word.

Well this is similar to evolution, except it makes several copies and tries different letters with each one. The ones that produce valid words are kept and the ones that produce invalid words are discarded. Then the ones that produce a word that is more similar to the target word are allowed to repeat this process and the words, although valid, that are less similar to the target word are not allowed to continue.

Try it your self, you just need a piece of paper and a pencil.

1) Start with the word "LIVED"

2) Write down 20 variants of it selecting a random letter each time in the word and replacing it with a random letter from the alphabet.

3) Discard all of the words that are not valid words.

4) Look at the remaining words and see which are more similar to the target word: "DEATH" by counting the number of letters that are similar.

5) For the words that score highest on that last step, repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 with the new set of words until you reach the target word: "DEATH".

As I explained earlier, DNA can be thought of as "Letters", the thing is there is only 4 letters in the cell's "alphabet" compared to our 26 letters.

But what about adding or removing letters? Some genomes are shorter or longer than others.

Well Virus insert themselves into the DNA of their host organism, so a virus would be able to increase the size of an organism's DNA. Also, some times, a section of DNA gets repeated during the copying of the DNA. So these show that DNA can in fact increase in size.

With shrinking, errors can occur where by a section of DNA is accidentally cut out (we know that certain chemicals can actually do this, the name for them are called gene shears). This means that sections can be taken out of the DNA and a genome can shrink.

So if we can have DNA that can change, get longer and get smaller, then we could extend the analogy of that word game and change Step (2) to

2) Write down 20 variants of it by adding in in a new letter, removing a single letter or selecting a random letter each time in the word and replacing it with a random letter from the alphabet.

Using this new rule you can start from any single word in the English language and generate any other word. Or, if we are considering DNA, you can go from any one Genome to any other Genome.

Now remember the Rule (3) in the word game in which each word had to be a valid English word, well in evolution, each organism has to be a viable organism. It must be able to live and reproduce.

Rule (4) states that the Word must be similar to the target word. In evolution, this is the rule that organisms that are better suited to their environment find it easier to survive and find a mate (and so reproduce).

So, in our Word Game analogy, we find that Evolution has an exact match for the process that the rule describes.

If yo can accept that the word game works (and you can play it yourself easily to tet that calim), then the same should be possible for DNA.

But lets check this.

Find two lengths of DNA (a single gene will do as an example), and using the rules of the word game start with the first sequence and change it into the second.

You just have to remember that you have to discard sequences that don't produce a viable sequence (ie: there is no codons between a start and stop codon and that there are start and stop codons) and allow the sequences that are closest to the target sequence to continue.

Also, note that the two sequences don't have to be the same length as rule (2) was changed to allow for the fact that DNA can have additions and deletions to it. Also, the stop and start codons don't have to be at the very ends of the sequence but can occur at any point in the sequence.

For example:

With the sequence

ATA ATA AUG CGT AAT TTG UGA AAT ATA

The Start Codon is at position 3 and the stop codon is at position 7. This means that the actual coding bit is: CGT AAT TTG, and that it is still a viable sequence.

But that's it. Evolution is just the same as that Word Game. IF you can accept that those rules of that word game allow you to go from one word to another, then you also ahve to accept that those exact same rules when applied to the "letters" of DNA allow you to go from one organism to another.

You don't have to "simply buy anything scientists say, hook line, and sinker". Do the experiment your self.

Apply the same rules to sections of DNA and prove that one sequence of DNA can not be turned into another (or accept that they can if you are able to do so ).

I am going to turn your statement around: Why should I simply buy anything ANYBODY (including you) says, hook line, and sinker.

I have done these experiments. I have got my results and so I am not buying into anything just because someone says. Because of my own experiments I accept evolution only because the results of my experiments agree with evolution.

I have given you a simple experiment that you can do with a price of paper and a pencil so that you can check it your self. There is no excuse not to be able to do it, you don't need a complex lab. IF you don't have a piece of paper and a pencil, then use your computer and whatever word processor you have installed (you would at least have NotePad on a windows machine or some other text editor).

Do the experiment and show us that the process does not work as described. Prove to us that you can not, using the rules described in the Word game) that you can not go from one sequence of letters (be they DNA or English words) to another.

Thus, without achieving the standard moral necessary to control this power, humans are a threat to this universe.

So because of a few individuals, these overlords would commit genocide.

If I had the power to wipe out a whole planet like that, I would not use that power in that manner. Does this make me ethically superior to these overlords, and if it does, does this mean that I have the moral standard necessary to control this power and that because I am of a higher moral than they are, should they give this power to me?

This is the biggest problem that the "Unseen Overlord" argument faces. The arguments usually state that they have some moral superiority over us because we commit atrocities (like genocide), but then the solution that is presented that the Overlord(s) take is to commit these atrocities themselves.

It means that either these Overlord(s) are just as ethically competent as we are and so their justification of their actions fails, or they don't really exist and that the people who present these arguments lack imagination.

Well, I suppose there is one other option: That they are completely incompetent at designing and running an experiment.

The root of all these arguments is that: "Humans are special". That we are so different form anything these Overlord(s) expected that we are "Unique in the Universe".

It is Geocentricism with a new coat of paint.

It has been pretty obvious that our technological power has been growing at an exponential rate from the Industrial Revolution. Plus if they had developed to the point that they have the power to craft the history of an entire species for hundreds of thousands of years, then, they themselves would ahve gone through this technological expansion phase and know what to look for. They could then have stopped it early on well before it got to the point where we were a threat.

For example, sabotage a few of the early unmanned rockets so as to make the development of space travel completely uneconomical. Or better yet, stop the industrial revolution from occuring in the first place.

If they can spy on us unseen, and have the power to destroy worlds, then this would be trivial for them.

If they have control over our development, then they already have a method for interactions and could have controlled us away form excessive technological development.

I see what your arguments are. Basically, people said science is reality, rational and have nothing to do with belief or the conscious. Well, if you don't consider the possibility, then my argument is not for you.

No, you have this completely wrong. Science is not reality, it is our best description of it so far.

Every single person that I ahve found that presents psudoscience has this exact same misunderstanding about science. They all think that scientists think that Science dictates reality, but in fact it is the other way around: Reality dictates science.

Science is a description of reality, and as our information about what reality is grows, we change our description of reality (scientific theories).

It has nothing to do with beliefs.

If I was to state that my computer case is black, does this mean that because I believe that it is black that makes it black (as opposed to beige), or that it is black and my statement is describing what it really is?

If a scientist states that according to all observations, energy is conserved, then does the scientists statement mean that they believe it to be true, or are they just describing a feature that is consistent between all observations?

It is of course the latter. They are making the statement that: "according to all observations" they have reached that conclusion.

They then go on to say that if someone can perform an experiment that contradicts that conclusion, then they will change that conclusion.

This is why it is absolutely necessary to present evidence.

The original statement stated: "according to all observations". This means that the original statement used evidence to reach that conclusion. Not belief, democracy, wishful thinking, cleaver maths, well put together arguments, that is makes sense to you, fame or anything else.

As science is about reaching a description of reality, then you have to show that what you are talking about actually occurs in reality.

That is all evidence is: Proof that what you are claiming actually occurs in reality.

If yo claim that something is real, then you need to have proof that it is real.

The big misunderstanding that occurs with Quantum Mechanics, is with the word "Observe" (and Observer).

There is one interpretation of that word (by the way not put forth by scientists or even accepted by them), that the word Observe relates to a conscious observer.

However, the science is very clear on what "Observe" means (and what an "Observer" is). What it means is: Something interacting.

There is absolutely no mention of it needing consciousness.

This misunderstanding comes from other uses of the word "Observe", as in: A scientist observed the interference pattern in the two slit experiment.

Think of it like the work "like". You can "like" something, which means that you find it nice, or something can be "like" something else, which means that it is similar.

It is the same word, but a different meaning.

What people who are talking about quantum consciousness have done is the equivalent of someone saying: I like ice cream, and then concluding that the person thinks they are similar to ice cream because the word "like" cna be used to mean"Similar".

In Quantum Mechanics, the word "Observe" means to interact. And, yes, the word "Observe" can mean for a conscious person to see something", but in this case it does not. It means: To interact.

And from that Observer means: The thing interacting.

So when scientists sate that "the Wave Function collapses" when an observer observe it, what they are saying is that when another object from outside the system interacts with the system, the wave function collapses.

This object does not have to be a conscious observer, it could just be a single photon of light, or an electron, an atom, a molecule, or any other object (including a conscious observer - it just does not have to be).

There is a logical fallacy that describes this exact faulty reasoning. It is called: Equivocation

Consciousness (as many scientists have come to agree on), may indeed have a quantum explanation.

Yes, it may or it may not have a quantum origin, but hat would not actually count as a validation of these ideas.

A computer chip is made of silicone, and so is glass. Does that mean that they must share the same properties.

Can I just plug a piece of glass into the chip socket of my computer and it will work?

No. Although they share some properties, it does not mean that they share all properties. This is a logical fallacy called: Composition

I don't buy into this warmer temperature of the planet earth has been created by humans and their carbon footprint. Carbon is not all powerful and neither are humans. I don't think those two forces combined have such power to knock the planet apart.

First of all, you don't have to be "all powerful" to cause global warming. You just need to be powerful enough.

Now the physics of carbon dioxide (and certain other gasses like Methane and water vapour) are well known. We know that they scatter infra-red radiation.

We also know that sunlight warms the ground and the oceans and that they re-emit that light as infra-red.

Without the CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses), this infra-red radiation would radiate straight out into space. However, if you scatter it, then some will scatter back down onto Earth, where it will heat the ground and the oceans.

This is basic physics, and there are no scientists that would actually dispute this (and it can easily be seen in a lab). Other gasses will scatter other frequencies of light, it is why the sky is blue in the day time. There are gasses that scatter blue light. So we know that this does occur.

The Earth has some natural greenhouse gasses and if it didn't Earth would be an ice ball (the temperature would be less than 0 degrees C. About -20 C IIRC).

So we know that there are gasses that trap heat (energy) in the Earth's atmosphere and oceans.

But what happens if we were to increase the concentrations of those gasses?

Well the Earth, before we made changes to the greenhouse gasses, would have reached an equilibrium (it would change over time, but the equilibrium would be reached faster than it would change). The amount of energy coming in would have been matched by the amount leaving.

This is because the amount of energy falling onto the Earth is constant (or close enough to), but the amount radiated out is dependent on the amount of energy contained on the Earth. So the hotter the Earth, the more is actually emitted from the Earth.

But, if the amount of greenhouse gasses are increased (or decreased) then the level of Equilibrium changes. This means that if you increase CO2 (and other greenhouse gasses), then you will get warming.

Looking at ice core samples, we know that CO2 has increased from around 270 parts per million (pre-industrial) to around 385 parts per million (yes that is around 140% of its pre-industrial levels).

That is a significant increase.

In terms of a social example, women were considered second class citizens up to the past few centuries.

This is just plain wrong.

In Sparta, women were considered to be almost equal to men, only that they couldn't go into battle. They could own land, hold jobs and even become politicians (well they had to, the men focused on fighting). If we look at it like yo do, then these women were "more advanced".

But the thing you are forgetting is that Women and Men are not separate species. We share virtually all our genes (actually women have more genes than men) so it would be very reasonable to assume that both Men and Women have very similar capabilities.

Sure, one might be a bit stronger and the other can give birth and the male effectively has degenerate female characteristics (men do have nipples but they are pretty useless). So which is more "advanced"

The ones that are stronger and can gather food, or the ones that can reproduce the next generation?

Actually, if you leave out humans, then it is generally the females that are the dominant ones. They are usually bigger, live longer, etc. The males are just a handy way to spread genes .

Me, I would say that they are adapted for the role that is required. Neither is more "Advanced".

Actually this kind of thinking, that one species is more "Advanced" than another, disappeared with Darwin. Yes with Darwin. What Darwin said was that no species is more "Advanced" than another, except when considering the role that it plays in its environment, and that if it is more advanced in that way, then it out competes its rivals and survives to reproduce.

That last word is one of the really important ones. It is not about whether it lives or dies that is important for Evolution, but whether or not it reproduces.

What I think you are getting confused about is Preadaptation. This is where an organism, through genetic drift, evolves a trait that is not immediately advantageous (and it could even be slightly disadvantageous), but then due to a changing environment, that trait becomes an advantage and so the organism reproduces more.

The problem with what you are thinking is that the trait only because an advantage IF the environment changes in that particular way. As these changes are virtually random, then, until that specific change takes place, that organism can't be considered more advantageous.

As an example:

Imagine a Dog like creature. Due to genetic drift, some of the population develop slightly longer toes on its paws and they become webbed.

Now, if the environment become more wet and swimming became necessary, then these individuals would become more fit and you would consider them more advanced.

However, what if instead the environment became drier? These would not be considered more advanced.

Or how about this one:

What if there was an Ape that due to there being lots of food, they were able to develop big brains. Now big brains require a lot of food (our brains consume a lot of the energy we take in), so what if the environment changed so that there was no longer a lot of food available?

Would those big brains be an advantage or a disadvantage. Which would be considered more "advanced" a creature that has a trait that causes it to starve to death, or one that doesn't have that trait?

For example, you can have a forest of old regressive trees dominating the canopy.

The Environment is not just the rocks and the soil and the air, it is also other organisms. So in your example, those large trees are part of the environment and if they can out compete the new trees by being bigger first, than that is not a problem.

In evolution most organisms will die before reproducing. For a population to remain stable, then the number of individuals that survive in a generation must be equal to the number of individuals in the previous generation.

This means that if you have a species that has 1000 offspring, then for the population to remain stable, only 2 of them survive and the rest of the 998 die (and this is important) before they can reproduce.

As a direct example:

Lets assume that there is a species that has an average of 4 offspring each generation and it can reproduce after 3 years (the generation time) and the parents die after reproducing.

So starting with a reasonable population of 1000, after the first generation (and the parents dying) we have:

500 breeding pairs * 4 offspring = 2000

In generation 2: 4000

In generation 3: 8000

In generation 4: 16000

In generation 5: 32000

In generation 6: 64000

In generation 7: 128000

In generation 8: 256000

In generation 9: 512000

In generation 10: 1024000

So in 10 generations we have gone from a population of 1 thousand to over 1 million! That is an increase of a thousand fold!

With the generation time of just 3 years, this is only 30 years.

But lets continue:

In generation 20 (60 years): 1,048,576,000

In generation 30 (90 years): 1,073,741,824,000

So if all this species offspring survived, then in under 100 years (within a human's lifetime) the number of individuals would be over 1 trillion!

This proves that for evolution to work many organisms must die. So the fact that those old trees were overshadowing the younger trees is important, but not for the way you were thinking. It is not about one being more advanced and the other regressive.

It is not even that the younger trees are competing against the older trees.

The older trees would be competing against each other to get their seeds more widely spread and the younger tress would be competing with each other for the available light and to be the fastest to grow when (and if) an older tree falls near them.

Humans have selective advantage in all the environments of the earth if we so desire.

No.

In Antarctica without the support from outside that environment, humans would die very quickly. Even with all our technology, if we didn't get regular supplies from elsewhere, we could not survive. However, Look at the Penguins, Seals and Whales. These creatures thrive in these environments where as we would die. I would say that these creatures have a massive selective advantage over humans in these environments.

This is why social Darwinism was tried but never seem to work right.

Social Darwinism has nothing to do with real evolution. It is a catch phrase that political spin doctors put on a horrendous idea (eugenics).

If Social Darwinism did use the real science of evolution, then it would conclude that eugenics is a bad idea.

To avoid inbreeding, a population needs to have a wide genetic base. You NEED variation. But Social Darwinism (and eugenics) acts to reduce the variation. Social Darwinism is the exact opposite of what evolution says you should do.

Social Darwinism is not based on Evolution..

That's the way I understand Natural Selection.

Also note that other organisms form part of that environment. This means that a static environment is actually impossible.

If one organism changes to adapt to the environment, then that alters the environment. This means that other organisms must adapt, but then this change the environment for that first organism ad it has to adapt again which changes the environment...

I mean, if one object impacted .00000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds later than the other, what time device would detect that small of a difference?

Actually the gravitational field from the mass of the experimenters would probably produce an error this big, or slight variations in the conductivity of the wires used in the sensors, vibrations set up by a passing truck, the fact that there is no prefect vacuum, etc.

So, based on the the limits of delectability, all objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum.

See my formation of a planet idea that was moved to the crackpot section.

Which has been disproved because it makes predictions that do not occur in reality.

Actually this is a form of Bare Assertion fallacy. You are claiming that your planet formation idea proves your gravitational idea, but your planet formation idea requires that your gravitation idea be correct. One can not be used as the only evidence of the other.

Can I borrow your stop watch?

Yes, keep going on about stopwatches and the human eye as if this is the only way they measure time. It keeps demonstrating that the only arguments you can filed against accepted science are Strawmen.

They DON'T measure these things with stopwatches and human eyes. Publicity stunts (like the hammer and feather on the moon) are not real experiments.

In real experiments they would use atomic clocks, and other highly accurate measuring devices. They would also know that there can be errors that creep in (like because the variation in conductance of the electrical wires used in the sensors, the gravity of the moon, the mass of the experimenters, passing trucks, etc). So they do the experiments again and again and again and average them out so as to try to eliminate these errors. Even then, they will include the error rate in the results.

According to these highly accurate and highly controlled experiments, all objects fall at the same rate in a gravitational field.

There is also another reason that this should occur: Inertia

Now, when you do make the calculations on how much force a hammer experiences due to gravity and how much force a feather experiences, then yes, the hammer does experience more force. However, because the hammer is more massive inertia means that it will experience the same rate of acceleration.

F=MA

which can be change to give

A= F/M

Now as the strength of gravity is dependent on the mass of the two objects (note it is not the difference between then masses of the two objects), it turns out that the Mass of the object in the gravitational formula is cancelled by the mass of the object in the Inertia calculations.

The only way that the acceleration due to gravity is effected by the mass of the object (rather than the mass of the object causing the acceleration) is if the Mass of the first object in the gravity calculation is different to the mass of that same object in the Inertia calculation.

In other words, for the acceleration of an object due to gravity to be different because objects have different mass is for each and every object to have 2 simultaneously different masses. An inertial mass and a gravitational mass.

But because the strength of gravity is dependent on the Mass of the object, these two masses (Gravitational and inertial) must be the same thing.

Which means that for your proposition (that objects of different masses have different rates of acceleration under gravity), an object has to have two completely different masses that are the actually no different masses.

It is a complete contradiction. How can something be the same and at the same time different.

It is like saying that the number 2 is different to the number 2. It makes no logical sense.

Nonsense. The heat from the sun would force the Earth away like a piston is forced down on the power stroke of an internal combustion engine.

If gravity couldn't prevent the Sun from blowing the Earth away, what is holding the Sun together? If the sun could push away the Earth, despite its gravity, then why could the Sun not blast its outer layers off just as easily exposing inner layers as new outer layers and then blasting those off as well. The Sun should obliterate itself in no time.

Where's the math to a volcanic eruption?

I don't have the equation in front of me, but there would be terms for pressure, structural integrity of the rock, viscosity of the lava and so forth.

So yes, there IS equations for a volcanic eruption.

There also wouldn't be just one single equation but multiple equations describing individual features of an eruption (although you could put them all together). The various equations would tie together with the output from one being the inputs to another.

For example the equation for the height of the plume would use the result of the equation to calculate the force exerted on the material as the eruption occurred.

Here is are some places to get started:

Fluid Dynamics

Pressures in gasses

Tensile Strength

All of those contain math that relate to eruptions of a volcano.

...and that's what I thought, volcanic eruptions aren't real because there is no math

Well that shows that volcanoes must be real. I jsut gave you the maths.

Gravity wouldn't overcome squat! Your understanding of gravity is highly flawed!

If you know that much about gravity, could you explain it then? I would be interested, as would any body here. Then we could examine it and see where it states where something different than current theory states would occur and we can revolutionise science and you can get a Nobel Prize.

However, this runs the risk of it saying something should happen and then it not happening and your theory getting disproved. But if you are so confident that your theory is correct, then this would not be a discouragement for you.

Current theory of gravity has thrown down the gauntlet by making claims as to what will occur in certain circumstances. Does your theory take up the challenge?

If we each say the others understanding is flawed, then the only way to resolve it is to test each other's understanding of gravity by using our understanding to make predictions as to what would occur in certain circumstances.

But back on topic...

The Sun is much larger than the Earth. This means that the Sun can't fall into the ocean. This means the question is actually nonsense.

Because of geometry, if you halve the distance between the Earth and the Sun, then the amount of sunlight (and the energy associated with it) increases by 4 times.

If the Earth currently receives around 147 petawatts of energy form the sun, then if we halved the distance between us and the Sun (it is currently around 146,900,000km away), then this would quadruple the amount of energy to 588 petawatts and we are still 73,450,000km away!

Keep going by halving the distance and quadrupling the amount of energy until you within the Earth's radius of the Sun and see how much energy would actually be impacting Earth.

Long before you actually got that close, the energy form the sun would boil away the ocean and then strip the atmosphere (and the vaporised oceans) from the Earth.

If we then assume jupiter is not important our rational relationship has a slight problem built into it.

Nirvana Fallacy

Perfect Solution Fallacy

It is quite a good read and some of the science sounds plausible - but I don't really believe it at all.

Yeh, if the aliens could travel through space, and they could predict where the asteroid would be hundreds of years in advance, then they could have just nudged it a bit so that it would hit something else (like Jupiter, or the Moon).

The longer before the asteroid hits the less you have to move it to avoid the collision.

So if it was true, then these aliens are willing to intervene so that the asteroid wont hit us by leaving cryptic clues that might be lost (what if there was a fire in their library ), but are unwilling to intervene in a way that would guarantee that the asteroid would not hit.

1. Edtharan does not know the correct mass and densities of the planets, stars, or moons, as they are laughable figures arrived at using incorrect formulas using outdated and long since known to be false theories, and basically just figures that could NEVER be known, let alone close to accurate.

We can actually directly measure the amount of gravity each of the planets produces. We can look at how they deflect the paths of object like comets and even spaceships. So we can quite accurately and directly measure the gravity of planets.

From that we can deduce the mass of the planets, and then by measuring the size of them (also quite simple) we can therefore can determine the density of them.

The formula for density is not that difficult: Density = Mass / Volume

We can even measure the variations in density that occurs when a mountain range or other slightly more dense structure exists on a planet. We do this for Earth all the time, but we have also done it for regions on Mars.

So not only can we determine the overall density of a planet, we can even determine variation in that density.

Although I might not know the precise mass of planets to an arbitrary decimal point, it is actually quite simple to determine the mass of a planet.

The amount an object is deflected due to gravity is not dependant on the mass of the object being deflected, but instead is only dependent on the mass of the object that is causing the deflection and the distance from it.

We can measure the position of a planet and the object relative to the Earth quite accurately (about the wavelength of the radar beam used to detect them). So if we use a wavelength of 1 cm then we know their position to around 1 cm.

Better yet we can compile several measurement and adjust for error. We can determine the error because we can also determine the speed that they are travelling at and this measurement is not dependent on the wavelength but instead on how much the wavelength is shifted (called chirping) because the object is moving relative to us. The accuracy is then limited only by the accuracy of our equipment here on Earth (and it is just like the system police use to measure your speed).

By knowing the speed, we we use that in a slightly more complex calculation to determine the error sizes caused by the size of the wavelength of the radar.

We can then use this to track the motions of both the planet and the object and know the distance between them and the speed and the changed in speed and direction caused by gravity. A simple equation can then tell us the mass of the planet.

The same radar can be used to give us a measure of the size of the planet (and again the same systems are used here on earth to measure the size of various objects).

So we have a measurement of the mass of a planet and we have the size of the planet. We can then simply divide the Mass by the size and we have the density.

All the systems and the mathematics have been tested here on Earth and they have been shown to be correct. Why then would they fail for planets (oh and by the way, we have used them to measure the size, mass and density of both the Earth and the Moon and these have been confirmed because we have actually had people there to confirm it so we knoe it doesn't fail for planets).

2. The planets were not "spit out" all at once. The first formed and continuously moved away in its orbit over a great amount of time. Then the second was formed, and it continuously moved away in its orbit, and then a third and so on. You end up with the 1st planet that was formed being the oldest, the furthest away, the coolest, and the least dense, the second a little closer and a little younger, the third closer, and so on. The planets were not always what they are composed of today. They were once ALL hot sun matter. They cooled, and suffered decay. They expanded when they cooled. The furthest away is the oldest, so it had the greatest amount of time to cool and expand, and so on to the last formed still being...hot and dense.

However, the planets have most of the angular momentum of the solar system (the sun has most of the mass). If the sun were to spit out the Planets, like you say, then conservation of angular momentum will dictate that the Sun will need to slow down. You can see this directly with ice skaters. If they start spinning and pull their arms in towards their body, they will speed up, but if they move their arms out away from their body, they will slow down.

This means that the outer planets will ahve had more angular momentum than the inner planets, which if you measure their orbital speed, you find that this is not the case (they are remarkably similar, which is what you would expect if they formed from an accretion disk).

Also, if the Sun had spit out the planets then they would have been sent off in a tangential direction from the sun which would have resulted in them having highly elliptical orbits (which again, they don't have being nearly circular for the most part). It takes very complicated orbital adjustments through rocket for a satellite to change from an elliptical orbit to a nearly circular one. It takes accurate timing of the thrusts and accurate control over the power of the thrusts. Such delicacy could be achieved naturally, but it is extremely unlikely and also we would be able to see such structures still existing in the solar system (especially as you say this process is on going so a stable structure that can achieve this orbital readjustment would still need to exist). As no such structure is known to exist in the solar system, then we can exclude this as a possibility.

Lastly: It takes energy to move an object from a close orbit to an orbit further away. This means that the outer planets must some how have gained energy to move them away from the sun.

The Earth's mass is around 5.9736 × 10^24 kg. It would take a phenomenal amount of energy to move that from near the Sun (1.98892 * 10^30kg) out to its current position (around 150,000,000km). Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are far more massive than the Earth and also far further away form the Sun. The amounts of energy needed to move them there would have been just as massive.

So not only would it require massive energy to move these planets (and you have to explain where this energy comes from), you have to have a mechanism that can control these forces in an extremely delicate way.

I am not saying that it is impossible, just that it is extremely unlikely and that you haven't actually covered these necessities in your theory.

However, if we apply Occam's Razor, then if two competing theories provide the same result, then we should use the one that is simplest. Acreation theory explains the positions, orbits and angular momentum of the planets. Your theory does not explain the orbits or angular momentum (but does attempt to explain their positions).

For your theory to explain the orbits of the planets, then it requires a massive amount of energy to come from nowhere (unless you can explain where it comes from) and for this energy to be delicately controlled to allow the planets to achieve nearly circular orbits despite starting off on a tangential orbit from the Sun and to achieve enough change to their orbit before they had completed a single orbit (or they would have just hit the Sun again as they came back around ).

Which is simpler. A process that we know will occur in dust clouds (as we can model it on computer using just gravity and friction) and that we can ACTUALLY see occuring around other newly forming stars, or a theory that does not explain even why the orbits of the planets are nearly circular, and can not account for the angular velocities of the planets.

So when they find out I am correct will you take back the "fairytale" bit? LOL

Science works on the principle of: Disproving the Negative.

It is easy to disprove a negative as all you ahve to do is provide proof of the positive. If the phenomina in question is real, then there will be evidence that it exists (the positive).

However, if it doen't exist, then there will not likely be evidence that it doesn't exist (as evidence indicates existance, therefore evidence that it doesn't exist would be evidence of its existance... ).

You are claiming that the phenomina "repulsive gravity" exists.

If the phenomina does exist, then there will be evidecne for it (but it might be difficult to find). But if it doesn't exist then we will not find evidence for it.

SO if we assume that repulsive gravity exists, then we can just say that the reason that we haven't seen any evidecne for it is that it is difficult to find. But this is indistinguishable from the situation that it doesn't exist.

So taking this view, we can never be certain that we are not just making stuff up.

However, if you use SCIENCE, and take the assumption that repulsive gravity dosn't exist, then as soon as we find a single incidence of repulsive gravity we can be certain of it's existance and the reality of it.

One way (the fist) we can never be certain of reality, and the other (the second) we can be certain of a phenomina's reality.

Gravity is caused by a structure in density order, my friend. Objects go to their proper density order. Earth (and all planets) are the most dense in the core and the least dense at the outer edges, in order! If you force an object to go to a less or greater density area, it will go back to it's proper density area. Rock towards the core, and helium away from the core (when released from sea level).

You have it backwards. The reason that helium rises and rocks fall is density caused by gravity.

Experiments done in orbit demonstrate that you can have a gas (air) surounded by a liquid (water). They simply put a blob of water in free fall and then using a straw, blew air into it.

If you were correct, then the air would have imediately moved outwards and the water moved inwards (as the water and air in the experiment have mass and therefore gravity, although small, but they were not experincing any other gravity). However, this structuire remained stable, thus disproving your claim.

So gravity can not be caused by desnsity, and so some other theory is needed (it doesn't mean that current theory has to be correct, it just means that your claim can't be).

However, current theory does explain the result of that experiment (that gravity is caused by mass), so even if current theory is ultimatly shown to be incorrect, it is good enough to be used in these situations.

All planets started out as hot sun matter, and cooled and decayed over time, as they slowly got further from the sun do to becoming less dense (which is the reason they got further from the sun).

Yes, Saturn is less dense than Earth. However, Jupiter is far more dense than Earth. In addition, this does not explain moons. Some of the Moons of Saturn are more dense than it. Your theory does not account for the moons at all.

Current theory does.

Not only that, we have Photographs (made throgh a telescope) of planets forming this way around other stars. This is DIRECT proof that your theory is incorrect.

Apples and oranges. We don't have footage of bigfoot somewhere else. Don't forget, I only used the courtroom to demonstrate the absurdity of accepting cries of "fake" without some sort of proof. In your example there is equivilent proof and therefore is sufficient to cast doubt on the original footage.

I am not talking about the location of Big Foot, but I evidence against its existance.

Biology and genetics places a certain limit on population densities. We know what limits primate (and even big primates) need in these cases to maintain a viable population.

The population densities that are demonstrated by Big Foot in the Capture - Recapture method of determining population densities indicates that the population density of Big Foot is far below the level needed to maintain a viable population.

You see I was talking about evidence that casts doubt on the validity of the first piece of evidence. Remember in my example either photo could have been faked. The evidence didn't prove that the first was a fake, it only cast doubt on it.

That was my point.

I do appreciate your attention to detail, however you didn't answer the question. "Short of a body, what could he have produced?" Because doubt has been cast (quite rightly in most cases) over the previous evidence, what is left? It's in this that I find our expectation to be unfair.

As the list of evidence that could be use is quite large (and I don't know what all of them could be), I instead chose to explain how you could identify evidecne that would answer your question.

ie: Evidence that does not ahve doubt about its validity.

A body is one easy piece of evidence. Bones (they would die), fossils (they would have had to evolve from something), photographic evidence by a reputable wildlife photographer (all have been from questionable sources so far), large scale sighting (like it wanders into the middle of a town), nest (they would sleep at some time), etc. There is a mountain of such evidence that could be presented.

Is it fair to ask somebody to produce more (better) evidence while at the same time telling them that because such evidence can be/has been faked before, we are not going to listen to them anyway?

If the evidence is questionable, then it wouldn't be "better" would it.

If we say give us better evidence and they don't, is it fair to come to the same conclusion (tha that evidence is still not reliable)?

If we say give us better evidence and they did, it would be fair to considder that evidence. However, this has so far not happened.

Again, it's not about bigfoot, it's about our methodology.

You are right. It is about the methodology. If someone claims to be doing science, then they should be following the scientific method.

Science is about describing reality, it activly tries to avoide making mistakes where by we accept something that is not real. Because of this science uses the process of: Disproving the negative.

You can never disprove the posititive. For instance if you start out with the assumption that Big Foot exists, then no matter how much proof of faked evidence: Big Foot still might actually exist. There is no way that you can actually disprove the assuption that Big Foot exists (as this thread clearly shows).

However, science uses the "Disprove the Negative". This can be done. For instance if you start with the assumption that Big Foot doesn't exist, then a single conclusive proof of its existance disproves this assumtion and then we can be certain that Big Foot does exist.

How heavy would a very strong and wide 78,000 km ribbon be? I suspect that the weight would make it totally impractical to carry, even on a very large starship.

Well for strength, Carbon Nanotubes are nearly up to the task, so we might be able to make these things soon.

As for carting the raw materials around, well you do have a solar system to harvest from .

Carbon could either be harvested directly from comets and asteroids, or if the technology is sufficiently advanced, it could be manufactured using fusion.

I do. We may know where the stars are at, but we are pretty much in the same position as the Austronesians were when they left for the Pacific islands. We also don't know where to go, and before we decide on a star system we would have to send probes to gather information. Or just accept the risks and go to that star system anyway. At the very least, this doubles the time necessary to actually go out and make stable colonies on those star systems, even if we launch the probes ahead of time.

Actually we are finding planets around other stars now (even terrestrial planets) and this is with current technology and being in an atmosphere. In space we could make larger telescopes and produce swarms of them in a massive interferometer. Using these tools we would be able to analyse the atmosphere of planets orbiting another star (they are even attempting to do this today ).

We wouldn't have to send probes to nearby systems, nor blindly set out and hope for the best. We would know what the large bodies that make up the new solar system will be and even if they have a viable atmosphere for a colony (and maybe even if they harbour life). And this will be available to us within the next 50 years.

I am not a creationist. I appear to argue that way, because I am not an empiricist either, since that approach does not have to be logically consistent, only consistent with the data. With evolution we have discontinuous data, therefore logic would indicate empirical models using such data will always end up as some version of discontinuity.

Your argument here is actually a logical fallacy: It is both the Nirvana Fallacy and the Perfect Solution Fallacy.

By your criteria: No single scientific law is acceptable. All data for all scientific laws are incomplete and therefore can not be accepted by you, according to your criteria. All scientific laws are only "consistent with the data".

The logical tie breaker is the inability of evolution to make solid predictions of the future. Since evolution, as written, can't be used for that purpose in any solid way, evolution has added the corollary, that life and evolution has no goal in mind, since the model can't give us any indication of a goal. This premise looks like a self serving premise.

There are two reasons that Evolution can't make solid predictions:

1) Life is a complex system.

2) There is a random element involved.

Quantum Mechanics can not make a solid prediction as to both the position and momentum of a particle. Does this mean that Quantum Mechanics is wrong? Does it mean that any "prediction" made with Quantum Mechanics is useless?

No.

It is the same with evolution.

Evolutionary theory, although it can't make perfect predictions, can give us probabilities of certain things happening.

For instance, we know that if a species has variations where some individuals have longer or shorter necks, and the food at lower levels becomes scarce, then those with longer necks will survive better and produce more offspring and so the population will develop longer necks over all.

However, if the population also includes creatures with longer legs as well, then evolution does not say which will end up as the final solution, but we can say what the likely hood is (if there are predators the longer legs would be more likely as they give more than just an advantage for food gathering).

So yes, evolution can be used to make predictions.

As far as I am concerned evolution should follow the laws of logic.

It does. It is just that it is a complex system, so that when you don't precisely know all the data, then your logical conclusions will differ from the actual results. It is not because they are not using logic, it is because the data is incomplete.

What makes it harder is that there is a random element (well not strictly random, but it is an influence that comes from outside the system where the system has no effect on what that influence is), in the form of certain mutations.

Because of this Unpredictable influence, we can never predict what the effect it is going to have until after it has occurred. But this does not mean that Evolution is not following logic.

Let me give an example, say we model gravity but ignore distance. We will use mass and time since we have that data, which appears sort of odd and discontinuous. You can never use reality logic. The best we can do is create an empirical model with a random affect. If one was to suggest using distance, if the tradition is up and running giving practical results this would be discredited because it rocks the boat.

Lets model gravity but ignore the effects of Jupiter on the Earth. Does this mean that we are not following Logic?

Or lets model gravity but ignore the effects of the keyboard in front of me on the orbit of Pluto. Doe this mean we are not following logic?

Our data is not perfect, but this does not mean we are not following logic, or that we can't make predictions. In the cases where we know we don't have all the data, we can perform several modelling with assumed data to get a spread of likely results. This then gives us a probabilistic prediction and also a more concrete prediction when we are able to get the missing data.

Even better, it can tell us what the missing data is, even without actually having to go out and look for it.

If the models say that one outcome will occur if the missing data is X but that a different outcome if the missing data is Y. If the second result is what was occurred, then we know that the missing data must have been Y. Then in future situations we can add in that missing data without having to actually get it, but again, this would still be a probabilistic prediction.

There is nothing wrong or non logical about probabilistic prediction.

My approach has always been add some logical variables to see if we can make evolution logical. Water and hydrogen bonding are two variables that appear like good places to look. Water is the solvent used by the living state here on earth. What a solvent does is surround and/or dissolve materials that are within it. The materials within it, have an impact on the solvent and can alter the solvent properties of the solvent. Water can dissolve salt, while the salt changes the properties of water.

Evolution is not a chemical theory, so trying to include specific chemistry is not really logical.

Evolution is about how traits spread through a population due to reproduction, variation and selection.

Evolution is NOT about aboigenesis. And this is where I think that people have got you confused with creationists. Creationists commonly confuse aboigenesis with evolution.

They have to harvest ice to refuel the lander craft for a second trip.

Or just build a Space Elevator.

You could park your ship in a Geosynchronous orbit and drop down a tether towards the planet. Meanwhile a Lander and team is sent to planet to build the anchor on the planet.

Once this space elevator is built, getting into and out of the planet's gravity well is much simpler and you can use more varied methods of power generation to get people and resources into space.

Not only that, when going into space, it will take less energy because you don't have to haul your energy (fuel) source up with you, it can stay on the planet (or even remain in space) as you would only need electricity to run the motors and no longer need a rocket.

If you can build a Space Elevator, then colonisation becomes much easier.

If you doubt this, then kindly list any form of evidence (short of a body) that he could have presented.

Lets look at this:

Lets say that a defendant is in court and the prosecution shows a video of the defendant robbing a bank (the crime he is accused of). However, then Defence shows another video time stamped at the same time showing the defendant as being in another place.

We can easily conclude that one of the videos is faked.

At this point we can do one of two things.

1) Look for other corroborating evidence or look at the probability of them being faked (and remember both could be faked).

2) Analyse the videos for signs of fakery.

Neither are perfect. If we take option (1) then this only give a probability of faker and if we take option (2) we can still come up with an inconclusive result.

Now, with Foot Prints and other such evidence, we encounter a problem in that we have two options (faked or not faked) and two claims to that effect.

Both sides then have a need to show that the other claim is wrong. But if we can't do it, then the safer option is to fall back on the "falsifyability" of the scientific method and leave the evidence out.

If the evidence was not faked, then more evidence that has corroborating evidence will be found and then this can be used to re-examine the initial evidence.

However, if the evidence was faked, then this mistake could be used to support other false data and we then come to a conclusion that is not based on reality.

It is far safer to come to an incorrect conclusion that can subsequently be easily falsified, than to come to an incorrect conclusion that can't easily be falsified.

This is why scientists reject these pieces of evidence, as they are inconclusive, it is safer to leave them out than to include them.

IF a body of Big Foot was discovered, many scientists would reopen the debate on these other items of evidence and analyse them with the new knowledge that they then have corroborating evidence (the body).

It is a bit like me saying that I fliped a coin 1000 times nad the result was that the coin had a 50/50 chance of being heads or tails, then asking you, based on that evidence to reach a conclusion that the coin would land specifically on heads or land on tails.

The evidence is inconclusive about whether the coin will be heads or tails. We can not know. So the only response is to state that you don't have enough information to make a judgement.

However, what is going on is that when those claiming big foot exists, they then present more inconclusive evidence in an effort to support heir claim that big foot exists.

Again, using the coin analogy, it would be like you asking for better information so as to be able to make your determinations, but then I just give you another 1000 coin flips that have the same 50/50 probability.

However, if I showed that the coin alternated between heads and tails between flips (so flip 1 would be heads then flip 2 would be tails and so on completely regularly for the 1000 flips), then this is enough information for you to make a prediction about the next coin toss.

The problem with the evidence is that they have been show to be faked, or that it could ahve been faked. This makes the evidence inconclusive for big foot.

Sure, a large number of items of evidence could be enough, but the items of evidence we have is nowhere near enough to reach such a conclusion.

Further what evidence we have, for many and various reasons, is suspect anyway.

One of these is consistency.

Often there is a lot of variation between the forms of evidence presented. Like footprints, there is differences of the structure of the feet that made the different prints. Now in a large population, this might be acceptable, but if the population is small enough that it could remain hidden, then the genetic variation will be small and you would not get this kind of variation in the population.

This is a kind of noise, so that if one or a few of these prints were genuine, the number of faked prints would make detecting the real form fake hard if not impossible to do. It becomes inconclusive and the only safe assumption is to "put it on the back shelf" until we can find more reliable corroborating evidence.

Seriously though, I write off claims of invisible things as rubbish instantly.

Why?

This is the point being raised.

You dismiss it as being rubbish, but that is because you don't have good evidence that it does exist. As you have made the claim that it is rubbish, then according to your argument, you have to prove that their claims are rubbish and that we don't have to prove that it exists any more.

Can you now see where we are coming form. We are taking the exact same stance as you are about invisible things and requiring that evidence be presented for them, rather than evidence be presented for fakery first.

With Bog Foot it is exactly the same thing.

On that basis, no evidence will ever be good enough. Even something authentic has only to be accused of being fake and that's it. You're setting up a situation where one side has to provide "proof of claim" and the other side does not. You couldn't run a high school debate under those rules.

It is not the same as this. When others have accused the evidence presented for Big Foot as being fake, it is not just that we are pulling it out of the air. There is usually a good reason for that claim, but hat it would take a lot of detailed technical knowledge and a lot of time to explain why.

I have often been accused on these forums for writing long posts, but that is because I take the time to try to explain why I reached the conclusion I did or hold the positions I do.

Not everyone has the time to be able to do this.

Also, many people haven't been trained in the art of communication.

So, just because someone hasn't written a lengthy dissection and discussion on why that piece of evidence is faked, does not mean that they are just claiming it to be wrong with no real supporting evidence.

The makers make the claim that Penn and Teller admitted the hoax. I have no problem with someone admitting a hoax, I have a problem with a third party making an unsupported claim that "so and so" admitted the hoax. See the difference?

As these presenters are well known it would be trivial to check the validity of this claim of them admitting the Hoax. Just write them a letter (or send an email). So either that site is taking a huge gamble that no one ever write a letter or sends an email to Penn and Teller, or that they are telling the truth.

Also, knowing Penn and Teller, this is completely in line with what they would do, especially in light of their Show "Bull S**t".

So if you are in doubt about this claim, go write them a letter.

BTW I've seen the Haiti video before. I really hope the maker lands a job in the film industry as his work is great. If you watch closely he's even spoofed the autofocus zoom. Brilliant work.

It would make quite the portfolio piece.

Concerning your points re bigfoot, I agree. The creature is unlikely for the genetic reasons you give. However, how do we know it's not in the last throws of extinction for those very reasons? It takes some generations for these problems to appear, if they exist(ed) perhaps their numbers only really dwindled since the coming of Europeans.

If this was the case then the Early Europeans would have encountered it far more commonly and it would then have been documented through either written accounts, or even bodies/skeletons/skins.

But then humans had been living in America for quite some time, if humans were going to make it extinct, they would have had the first shot at it. The Native Americans would ahve bee competing with Big Foot for space and food (we are omnivores so we would likely share food sources even if they were vegetarians), and seen it as a food source (for example bush meat in Africa as evidence that humans will eat great apes).

This means that Europeans would have encountered Big Foot either in large numbers (no evidence of this) or at best, when it was well on its way to extinction (but most likely, if it did ever exist, it would have been extinct for hundreds if not thousands of years).

Although your ideas might sound good, in reality they are not very likely (and so need that "extraordinary" evidence).

Bignose I take your point about the possibility of faking. The only difference between us is that I expect all claims to be backed by some kind of proof. It's not enough to cry "fake" as to me that is making a claim. You want to make a claim, fine, now back it up. The argument you seem to be making would not fly in a courtroom and since the level of evidence should be higher for a science, it should not fly there either.

We have provided evidence that these things are faked. It might not be direct evidence but it is evidence none the less.

In the case of your court room, if the defence was able to produce reliable evidence that at the time the dependent was somewhere else, then their claim that the video was faked, although they didn't give direct evidence that the video was faked, then the video evidence becomes suspect.

However, part of my argument is the inconsistency displayed sometimes. Why do we ask people to get better evidence if they want us to believe them and at the same time treat them as nutters for going out and looking for the very thing we have asked for? You can't have it both ways. It doesn't matter what the topic is, it is manifestly unfair to treat people in this fashion.

Some people do that, and so are you. We have provided evidence, if sometimes indirect evidence, that Big Foot can't exist (or that the chances of it actually existing is so slim as to be close to non-existence).

We don't treat them as "Nutters" for going out and looking for evidence, they get treated as "Nutters" for the evidence that they present (that they take flimsy and sometimes evidence that has already been proven as fake as solid proof).

If I was to go out and use that Haiti UFO video as proof of aliens, I think that I would be considered a "Nutter" (and so I should).