Edtharan

How can you tell if someone is lying to you? The simple answer is to see if what they are telling you can be confirmed or disproved by some other source. This is what science does. It treats everything as something that could be a lie, even the results and claims of other scientists. This means that everything in science has to be constantly subject to tests to see if it is true or not. Every time you drop a ball, you are testing gravity (if you make accurate observations to confirm the more precise claims about it all the better). What lead to this is that it was recognised that patterns occur in the behaviour of things in the universe (eg: things fall down). As people tested these regularities to see if they were truly regular it lead to the processes that we call science (measurements, description of the phenomena and testing of these descriptions). The bible does not state that blind faith is needed, just faith. Is it possible to have non-blind faith? Yes. We have non blind faith all the time, we use our brains and our rationality to develop non-blind faith. For example, every morning we see the sun rise and have done so every day of our lives. Further more as far back as records go, the sun has risen each and every morning. The data suggests that sun rises regularly and without exception. However, we have no proof that the sun will rise tomorrow and it can be said that we take it as "faith" that it will rise tomorrow, but this faith is not a blind faith because we have a lot of evidence on which we have based this faith on. Now, think back to what I was saying about science, that the processes of science is about looking for regularities and constant testing that these regularities actually exist and that our descriptions of them are accurate. So, although one might claim that there are things in science that are taken on faith, this faith is not a blind faith. Religion, on the other hand requires blind faith, if religious beliefs were to be treated as non-blind faith and tested regularly and with as much accuracy as we could, then they would crumble. Another way to look at it is that God gave humans the ability to reason and to think logically. Now to reject a gift from God is to reject God, so to not use our gifts of reason and logic would be a rejection of these gifts form God and thus a rejection of God. Also, as Satan is supposed to use lies and deceit to tempt us from God, then these gifts make sense as they allow us to determine what is a lie or truth. As I said above, the best way to determine if something is a lie is to test it, and that is what science does. Looking at it this way, in a worst case, science might not bring you closer to God, but it will stop you from getting further away from Him. And, the best case is that it is the intention of God all along.

Red Cabbage can be used to make a universal indicator (to detect Alkalinity or Acidity of something), although it is not as accurate as products specifically bought to do so (gardening stores might have such a product). You do this by cooking the red cabbage by boiling it in water and then using this water as the universal indicator (it changes colour depending on the PH).

Scientists often get called "closed minded" because they don't just accept everything they are told or think as true. Ironically, the people who call scientists close minded refuse to change their mind despite evidence contrary to their beliefs. But I agree, it is pointless to postulate an entire set of particles that never interacts with any other particle we interact with because there is no way to test if these particles actually do exist or not. However, if there are ways to test this, even by indirect means, then it becomes sensible to postulate such particles. So, with religion, we have God who supposedly can not be detected by any means (except if He want to). This is the same as those "particles". But, as God could give proof of His existence if He wanted to, and in a way that could not be mistaken for delusion (or what not), then the conclusion is that either God does not exist (as there would be no evidence for a non-existent God), or He does not want us to know of His existence. If God doesn't exist, then no religion is true. If God does not want us to know of His existence, then no religion is true. This gives us the conclusion that no religion is true.

(bold by me) And that's my point. The swimmer had to exert effort to do this.

You are treating consciousness as a "Thing" rather than as a process (see next section). If I was duplicated like you say, then each individual would have its own process, so I wouldn't think form 2 perspectives at once. However, as each process, from the moment of duplication has different experiences, then the processing of those experiences into consciousness would be different, so each would be distinct individuals that don't have the same consciousness. As an example, one of them would be the original and the other would be the copy. Just knowing that I was the original would mean that my experience of the copying would be fundamentally different form the copy. Or what about the scenario where the duplication split the original so that neither could say if they were the original or not? Well in this case we would have different spatial or temporal positions (eg: one wakes up on the left side of the room and the other on the right). These differences cause a fundamental distinction between the entities and this means the processes are different from the outset. As I said above, it is due to the fact that there is a fundamental distinction between the experiences of any copies. As experience is a process too, then you can state that the processes of the copies are different and distinct. It is even more simple than that. It the thinking of "Consciousness" as a "Thing" that leads you into trouble here. Let me give an example: If you copy a file on your computer, you create two files where the contents of them are identical. However, they exist as two separate entities on your hard drive because they have different physical locations on your hard drive. So even though they are identical in content, they are distinct and different by the fundamental fact that they have different physical locations. Now, this distinction is not found within the contents of the file, but in the fact that they don't occupy the same space and time. If you were then to make changes to one file and then different changes to the other, the contents of the files would begin to differentiate because different processes occurred to them (the changes you make). So the differences are not to be found in a physical property of the file, but in the processes that occurred to them (and they are involved in). This is the point I am making. As Consciousness is a process, then even if you copied the physical material the process is running on (the brain), the fact that one is a copy and they don't exist in the same space and time means that the processes are different and this creates differences in the copies, giving then uniqueness.

Actually the definiton of rebelion is: "An act or a show of defiance toward an authority or established convention" (from: http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rebellion ). So as Jesus, as you state: "established a new law" then it constitutes a rebellion, maybe not against God, but it was a rebellion none the less. In fact, using the dictionary definition of rebellion, all the examples that reatest I am presented are rebellions and the arguments stand. Or of you re-define a waord to suit your own meanings...

For a start, there is no evidence that a Soul exists, and different beliefs about what a soul is, is different between even people who believe in the same religion. So speculating on the effects of something that has not been shown to exist, and the definition of is inconsistent is not something that will lead to fruitful outcomes. However, we have a better handle on conciousness. As far as we can detect, conciousness is a product of the processes in our brain (that is all the properties of conciousness can be attributed to know processes that occur in the brain). Thus, if you were to duplicate the brain without interrupting these processes, then it would be possible to duplicate a conciousness (once duplicated it would be a different conciousness, but it could be done). Life too is just a process so there is no problem with duplicating that either. So the only problem is with something that has no evidence of existence and has no consistent definition. Actually, I think it is these very things that cause your problem in the first place. As there is no consistent definition of a soul and we have no evidence of its existence, then knowing what effects something would have on such an entity is also completely unknown and undefined.

Hmm, so you point to an article that disproves the Aether. If you read the article it makes a point to show the difference between waves in a medium and in the electromagnetic field. One part of the article in particular talks about how light is a transverse wave, but a wave in a medium can act as a compression wave. If light was carried by an Aether, then it would be able to act as both transverse waves and as compression waves. So, the fact that light does not come in compression type waves proves that an Aether can not exist. The article actually disproves your hypothesis. It might be a good idea to make sure that what you reference supports your claims rather than disproves them But to do this would require the Aether to be moved in the opposite direction to the motion of the body. As the Aether has been moved, it takes energy to do this (you can't get anything for free, if you could then you could use the Aether to get energy for nothing and violate the laws of conservation) it has to get it form some where and it would come from the motion of the objects,thus slowing it down. It doesn't matter if it is a frictionless super-fluid or not. As I said: This has nothing to do with friction. It has, instead to do with inertia. State changes are not the same as motion. For example, electricity only travels slowly along a wire, but the effect of that electricity travels close to the speed of light (a bit slower, but close). Now, this means that the motion of the electrons is slow, but the state change is fast. Now, if you has an object trying to move through that sea of electrons in the wire, then it would not be able to move fast as the motion of the electrons is so slow. However, you could "push" on some of the electrons and the force of that push could be felt at a distance almost immediately. However, even with this, it will still take energy to push an object through that sea of electrons because the electrons have to move. This occurs even in a super conductor. As I keep trying to say: Regardless of it being a superfulid, superconductor or just a normal fluid, the fact that you have to mvoe the substance out of the way to move the object will cause the energy of the object to be dispersed into the medium slowing the object down. Friction has not part in what I am saying. This would not occur like this. To start with, you have to push the Aether backwards with respect to the object. This takes energy, and where does this energy come from? The inertia of the object moving through it. You claim that the Aether acts as a super-fluid/solid, however, with super-fluids and solids (or medium actually) the laws of thermodynamics come into play and state that you can't get back 100% of the effort you put in. In the case of your frictionless super-fluid Aether, it force of the object moving through it would disperse throughout the Aether and less than 100% of the energy would go back to the object, thus slowing the object down. Again, you seem to think that super-fluids are some kind of magical substance that can just do what you want it to. Unfortunately the physics of fluids (super of mundane) still apply and these physical laws state that the object will slow down. By what do you mean "not null". From what I have read and seen of their experiments, the result was negative for an Aether (that is no evidence of the effects it should have on light were found in the experimental results). If you have the evidence I would like to see it, so post it up here and also clarify what you mean by "not null" (to me that means that the experiment did find evidence of the Aether, but if it did, what then does the evidence not show evidence of the effects of an Aether?).

If the Aether has a finite movement rate, then you will inevitably get a high pressure zone in front of it as something moves through it. This is not due to the interaction of matter with it, but of the interaction of the Aether with itself and the fact that it does not move at an infinite speed. If the Aether was to move at an infinite speed, then it would have an effective stiffness of infinite too (not to mention this would prevent any object from moving in it either). This would cause any vibration in it to move at an infinite speed as well, which would mean that light would move at an infinite speed. As light does not mover at an infinite speed, we can conclude that the Aether has a finite stiffness and a finite rate of movement, thus a region of high pressure and low pressure due to any object moving within it will exist. So, if you are willing to accept a finite speed of light in your Aether, then you must also accept that there should be regions of high and low pressure in front and behind moving objects and all the other effects that go with these. The problem with these high and low pressure areas is that they will cause an object to slow down, despite the fluid having 0 friction (as it is not a friction effect but a pressure effect). The fact that to move would require the object to push the Aether out of the way means that the object has to do work. This work reduces the energy of the object slowing it down. The loss of energy of the Earth moving through the Aether would mean that it would slow down and spiral into the sun in a fairly short amount of time (much less than what it has been around for). Thus, as the Earth has not spiralled into the sun and we have not seen any evidence of the Earth slowing down at all, we can conclude that either the Aether has an infinite stiffness or that it doesn't exist. As an infinitely stiff Aether would cause light to have an infinite speed as well, and that we don't measure an infinite speed of light, we can conclude that the Aether can not be infinitely stiff. This leaves us with only 1 option: That the Aether does not exist. This would mean that the rate of clock ticking would vary from the side of the Earth that lies in the direction of travel as compared to the trailing edge of the Earth. This has not been measured despite hundreds of thousands of devices that rely on accurate measurements from atomic clocks (GPS). As the evidence that exists disproves your claims that this is how the Aether works, then either the Aether doesn't work as you claim (leaving the initial problem with your hypothesis un-addressed) or it doesn't exist.

I actually remember some of these kinds of articles, however, they were in popular science magazines, not peer reviewed articles. If you were to do a bit more research on these articles, what you would find is that they were talking about the fact that according to the Milankovitch cycles we should be heading into an ice age (I even covered this in a previous post). In the past, the climate has indeed follwed these Milankovitch cycles, but now something is different. Even though the Milankovitch cycles state that we should be hedding into an ice age, instead the climate is warming. If the natural tendency is for the Earth to be cooling, but it is warming, then what do you propose could be doing this? We know that increasing the greenhouse gasses will cause warming, and that the amount of greenhouse gasses we are adding can account for most of it. So, if this interference by humans is not the cause of the warming, what then do you propose is? It has to be enough to not only cancel the ice age we are supposed to be going into, but also account for the warming above just cancelling out the ice age. So, by this argument: "That scientists predicted we should be going into an ice age", you actually work to prove that Global Warming is true as you are admitting that it is much warmer than it should be. If you look at the rhetoric that flies around, it is the climate change deniers that use "messianic zeal" rather than climate scientists. They make claims that are not supported by evidence, cherry pick data, use straw-men arguments about global warming (such as climate scientists are using "messianic zeal" and other such tactics to try and make people agree with them. Well established scientific theories such as black body radiation, conservation of energy and spectroscopy prove that global warming is real. It can't not be if the universe works as it has for the last 13 billion years or so (yes, there is lots of evidence that shows that black body radiation, conservation of energy and spectroscopy all worked billions of years ago). It is the effects of this warming that is still under debate, not that it is occurring (as for it not to occur it would have to violate laws we know have operate for billions of years with no exception). Well rocks can fall for non-anthropogenic reasons, so does this mean it is impossible for me to move a rock? No, of course not. Just because in the past things have not occurred due to anthropogenic reasons (for instance before humans evolved) does not mean that they can't occur due to anthropogenic reasons. We know that the Earth radiates the energy it recicevs from the sun as infra-red light. We know that CO2 and other greenhouse gasses effectively scatter infra-red light. We know the amount that a given greenhouse gas will scatter infra-red light. We know (fairly well) how much greenhouse gas is being produce by people. We know (fairly well) how much greenhouse gasses are in the atmosphere. From this we can work out how much effect humans are having on global warming. Further more, as you tried to argue earlier, we should be cooling, not warming. So the further argument that you present that we are coming out of an ice age is in direct contradiction to that earlier argument, so you are not even being self consistent in your arguments. However, according to the regular cycles that the Earth goes through, we should be entering an ice age rather than leaving it. Sure, 10,000 years ago we were coming out of an ice age (entering an Interglacial Period to give it the correct terminology), and the Earth did indeed warm then, but by now it should be entering a new Glacial Period (to give it the correct terminology). Interesting to note here the "messianic" flavour of your post. It seems that only the climate change deniers seem to say "that greenhouse gas doom is on the horizon". I have never heard a credible climate scientist use this (or similar) term. I have only ever heard this kind of phrase from climate change deniers trying to use ridicule to disprove climate science. This is a clear Appeal to Emotion fallacy ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_emotion ). Weather is not climate Just because we experience a warmer or colder year has no significance to the climate. There are many things that effect weather and it is much more variable than the climate over short periods of time (or locations). So while the Canadian north west might have experience an extra cold year, other places might have experience warmer years, or maybe more violent storms, or unseasonal winds, etc. To put it as simple as I can: Weather is different in different places and times. Climate deals with the whole Earth over a long period of time. They are different. Don't confuse one with the other. When you do confuse them like you have, it does not actually help your position. What it does is show that you don't understand what is being discussed and makes the position you are arguing for seem weak because you can't present a proper argument to support it. So, if you really want to support the position that climate change is not occurring, then it becomes in your best interest to learn as much as you can, from both sides of the argument and not dismiss one just because you disagree with it (asses it on its actual merits not on your biases).

If an impacted by an asteroid large enough to cause a significant increase in the gravity of the Earth, it wouldn't just make the Earth more massive, it would blast a lot of the Earth apart. For example, the asteroid impact that occurred 65 million years ago, at the time the dinosaurs went extinct, was around 10km in diameter ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicxulub_crater ). An asteroid this large would have a mass around 216 X 109 tons. Where as the Earth is around 6×1021 tons. That means that the Asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs was around 0.0000003 % of the mass of the Earth. So while it did add to the Earth's mass, it was so insignificant that it would not have made any difference to the ability of the Dinosaurs to stand up. Actually two things here: 1) There were many more smaller dinosaurs species that never grew very big (about the size of a horse or smaller), however these species also died out. Your "gravity" hypothesis does not account for them going extinct. 2) There have been large animals bigger then 3 tons after the dinosaurs when extinct, such as the Paraceratherium ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraceratherium ). Not only was this about the size of a medium Sauropod dinosaur, it was also a Mammal and evolved long after the dinosaurs went extinct. So the facts as shown by palaeoclimatological record disprove your "gravity" hypothesis. The "slow moving dinosaurs" originated in the belief that only animals that were not any good would go extinct. At the time this was proposed, they didn't believe that mass extinctions could occur, let alone that the Earth could be hit by an asteroid. Even if you look at cold blooded reptiles that exist today, we know that the can move quickly. Crocodiles and Alligators can move very quickly over a short distance, the Frilled Lizard of Australia can run very quickly. The Monitor lizards can also move quickly over quite long distances too, such as the Australian Perentie ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perentie ) Goanna, and such. There are even lizards that can achieve such a high speed that they can run across water. So, this argument that they were thought to be slow because cold blooded animals are slow does not even hold up to modern animals. Even the term "Cold Blooded" is not accurate because some of these animals can operate at body temperatures above that of mammals. All being "Cold Blooded" means is that the animal does not generate their heat internally, but gets it from outside (usually the sun, but it can also be warm environments near hot springs, etc). As such, they can, once they have their warmth, equal or even exceed the activity of mammals. So, even the uncertainty about dinosaur metabolism does not equal an argument for your "gravity" hypothesis. Actually, based on the bone structures and movement analysis done on them, a lower gravity would not help the dinosaurs move. Look at how the astronauts moved on the moon. They were clumsy and had a difficult time achieving a stable gate. This is because the length of limbs, the weight of the animal and the mass of the animal all interact to determine how it can move. Simply put, dinosaurs are not designed to move in significantly lower (or even higher gravity) than the gravity we experience today.

Ideas are easy, anyone can come up with an idea. In science, having ideas is good, but just because it is an interesting idea, sounds like it should work, or it makes sense to the person who had the idea does not mean that the idea is a correct (note I used good and correct). Once someone has an idea about something to do with science, it needs to be subject to the scientific method. If it can pass the basics needed for scientific verification, then it becomes an hypothesis. Once it has reached the status of hypothesis, it can be more rigorously investigated as more people will take it seriously. The speculations forum serves the purpose of allowing people to come up with ideas and to speculate on them and to allow other members here (many with scientific backgrounds) to asses the idea and to test if it holds up to the basics of being a scientific idea.

What you have to understand is the difference between cause and effect. The causes of Global Warming have been well understood for at least a century and are not too complex. This is the increase of greenhouse gasses that cause part of the outgoing infra-red radiation to be re-radiated back towards the ground, and the conservation of energy that demands that this energy can't just disappear. The effects of it are the complex bit and the bits. This is because how the energy moves arounf the climate systems and causes our weather is extremely complex. Climate is not the same as weather. If you look back to my analogy of the days and seasons, the seasons is like the climate, and the days and weeks are like the weather. Although the days and weeks have regular cycles, they are not easily predictable (just think of how often the weather service gets things wrong), but, we know that with the change of the seasons, certain effects will occur. As we go into winter, the days and nights will become colder (even if you do get a few warm spells and such). This is because the seasons effect the temperatures of the days. It is the same with the climate and weather. The climate is easier to predict than the weather because it is a longer term trend that is not as rapidly variable as weather is. However, the climate drives the weather, although not in as simple a way as seasons effect the temperatures of the days. Because the causes of climate change are much simpler and better known than the weather, we can work out how much effect human activity is adding to the energy of the climate systems. The effects of this added energy is uncertain and it is these effects that climate scientists disagree on. As far as I know, none disagree as to the causes of it (CO2 and other greenhouse gasses all absorb and then re-radiate infra-red light and the conservation laws are well established in science). It is actually possible to test these things in the lab. To test greenhouse gasses ability to absorb and re-radiate infra-red light, all you need to do is have a container of greenhouse gasses and shine an infra-red light through it. Some will be absorbed and re-radiated. By setting up detectors you can measure the amount that passes through and also measure how much is effectively scattered by the gasses. This has been done (I did experiments like that in high school chemistry - you probably did too) and it is the gasses that do this that are called greenhouse gasses. So the causes have been verified many times over and as the experiments needed to do so are easy to do and not expensive, virtually anyone can attempt it themselves with a bit of effort (and with accurate measurements and a bit of maths you can even work out the amount of effect that is being caused by human actions). The problem is the effects of this. Adding energy to a system, as I explained does two different things, it can makes things move faster, or make things get hotter (actually heating is just the atoms moving faster in no organised way, so it sort of only does one thing - makes things move faster). However, there are many things about the Earth's climate that can be made hotter, or made to move faster. Also, the knock on effects of these will also need to be taken into account. The reason the weather is so complex is that when you change one thing it has these knock on effects that cause secondary effects that can even come back to changing the original system again. There are many things that can effect climate, however, until the industrial revolution, humans didn't really have the power to cause much effect to the climate systems. There was some effects, but mostly it was natural forces. After the industrial revolution, the power of humans to affect change to the climate started to exceed many of the natural forces that affected the climate. In modern times, the power we have to affect the climate is increasing at an ever increasing rate. I'll address this briefly as the science of climate change and the politics of it are closely interwoven. Basically the augment you make here is invalid because it doesn't actually represent what has gone on. You present the price of climate change as a new cost to the economy. Actually the cost has been there form the start, it just hasn't been paid. It is like you forgetting to pay your credit card for a while. Sure, you seem to have more money now, and even can withdraw money form your credit card to get a bit more. But then you remember you have to pay this card. Now to do this you will have to spend your money, and it will seem like you are loosing money now. However, all you are doing is paying back money you shouldn't have had without cost in the first place. Basically, Nature's bank is calling in our debts. We should have known that these debts would be called in eventually, but we carried on as if we didn't have to pay it back. To continue with this analogy: We have some investments and a bit of money we can spend, lets hope we use it in a way that will enable us to pay back the debt we have accrued.

This is a good point. Why does one need to propose an Aether to explain light without explaining interactions of charged particles, when we know that the electromagnetic field explains what light is, and also explains the interaction of charged particles too. It is simply redundant to have an extra explanation (Aether) on top of something that needs to exist (EM fields) that at the same time explains what the Aether is supposed to explain.

Yes, there are natural cycles and variations, both long term and short term, of the Earth's climate. However, certain cycles are fairly regular, such as the interglacial/glacial cycles. According to these cycles, we should be entering into a glacial period at the moment. The Earth should be cooling (this is due to solar output, Earth's tilt and various other factors). But we are not. Why? The natural cycles that climate change deniers use actually say we should be cooling, not warming. What is different now than in the last cycle (or the many before that?). As for cause and effect, we know that climate change is occuring because of CO2 and other green house gasses because of the conservation of energy. Simply put: If you have a constant source of energy falling onto the Earth (and for the last 150 years we can consider it to be fairly constant), and the only way the Earth can loose this energy is by radiating it out into space (as we are in a vacuum), then the Earth will reach an equilibrium where the amount or energy radiated away will match the amount coming in. Using waht is called Black Body theory, we can calulate the average temperature the Earth should have if there are no other effects involved. This is around -16oc. However, the average temperature of the Earth is around +16oc. SO we know that something is changing the simple effect. Using conservation of energy, we know that if you slow down the rate that an object looses energy, then the amount of energy in that object has to go up. The restriction acts to store the energy in the object. Greenhouse gasses restrict the amount of energy that the Earth can radiate because the Earth's surface radiates in the infra-red wavelength and the greenhouse gasses absorb and then re-radiate infra-red light. However, when it does this it does so in a random direction, and that means around 50% of the radiation that is absorbed (just a bit less actually, but close enough that for this discussion we can assume it is 50%) is re-radiated back down towards the Earth. With the current levels of greenhouse gasses, this is enough to warm the earth by around 32oc (to take it form -16 to +16). However, if we increase the concentration of greenhouse gasses, then more of the radiation is blocked which leads to more infra-red light re-radiated back to the Earth, warming it up. This restriction means that a new equilibrium is reached, but one where more energy (and hence warming) is stored in the Earth's climate. This is what global warming is. It is an application of conservation of energy. What is uncertain is what the consequences of increasing the amount of energy in the climate systems of Earth will do. We do know two things that will occurs though, increasing the energy of something will either increase its temperature, or increase its velocity (ie make it more "energetic"). So increasing the energy in the atmosphere will either increase its velocities (more powerful storms) or increase its temperature (hotter weather melting icecaps, etc), or both. Humans are more than capable of changing various aspects of the Earth. For example, we have actually caused the Earth to speed up its rotation simply by the number ans size of the dams we have built (and their locations). The locations of these dams have been in temperate latitudes, and the extra water stored there has come from elsewhere on the planet. This has caused a net shift in water away from the equator, and towards the poles. due to conservation of angular momentum, this has cause the Earth to speed up its spin. Although this is a very small amount, it is still detectable with accurate timing systems. Now, this is not just the thin smear on the surface that is the atmosphere and oceans, but the whole planet that has speeded up. We most certainly do have the power to change the Earth, and have done so already. As for the climate, with the recent Icelandic volcano, the amount of CO2 put out by the volcano was compared to the amount of CO2 that would have been put out by the planes that were grounded because of the volcano. The amount CO2 put out by the volcano was less than would have been put out by the planes. So in effect, the volcano was carbon negative (and volcanoes are generally though of as massive CO2 contributors). Not only that, the planes that were grounded were only a fraction of the planes that flew at that time, and planes are flying 24/7/356, where as the volcano lasted only a few weeks. This also doesn't take into account the CO2 put out by cars and other transport which is greater than that of planes. So, the amount of CO2 put out by humans is certainly more than eneough to have a significant effect. The last ice age (specifically the end of our interglacial period and the start of the next glacial period) should have started around 7,000 years ago. That's if the cycles continued as they should have (according to palaeoecological records). Now, although there is a regular warming/cooling cycle that does occur, what has also been occurring is that each cycle is a little warmer than the one before. Think of it like this: When winter is turning into spring, you still get regular warming and cooling as day turns into night, but you know the weather is warming up and spring is coming because as this goes on the days and nights, even though there is a warming and cooling cycle going on, get warmer. This is the same as what is occurring with the Earth's climate. There are many such cycles of warming and cooling, but the evidence shows that each one is getting a little bit warmer than the ones before it. Although there is still variation where one can become slightly cooler, the over all long term trend is that they are getting warmer. This is a bit like how one week might have a cold snap, but the over all trend is still to warming as spring and summer approaches. Not only that, if you take into consideration that we should be cooling, then what we are experiencing is autumn (fall) should be turning into winter and getting a longer term cooling trend, but it is instead getting warmer and seems to be turning into summer again. If you had a year where autumn should have been turning into winter, but instead started getting hotter and hotter, you would start to worry. However, the position of the climate change deniers is like someone coming along to you and saying that we know in the past summer has been hotter than it is now, so we should be worried if it is getting hotter, as that occurs when summer comes along. But, the thing is it is not summer that should be arriving at this time, something must be wrong. And this is the position of climate change supporters. That we should not be going into summer now, that the warming is not supposed to be happening. They are looking for the reason, and the one they found that agrees with all the evidence (ie conservation of energy, etc) is that the greenhouse gasses that Humans have put into the atmosphere is causing the warming (because all the other cycles say it should be cooling and this is the only force strong enough to cause the warming we are seeing). The term "Global Warming" was actually used in an attempt to ridicule climate change. So I'm not surprised that the person who coined the term doesn't take it seriously. As it is the surface of the Earth that emits the infra-red radiation, then anything above that that can intercept it and re-radiate it back is enough to cause the warming effect. So even if 80% is in the lower atmosphere it is still going to cause an effect. It was the construction of that carbon based industry that gave us the economy. So constructing a non-carbon industry can give us a better economy. What it will mean, though, is the industries that don't change to the new economy and remain dependent on the old one will fail. Yes, this means that there will be businesses that will no longer exist (or not be as profitable). As an example: Horse breeders faced a similar "crisis" when the car was invented. As people started using cars to get around, they needed less and less horses. Thus, for the Horse stables, this was an economic crisis that could cause the collapse of their economy. So, yes. Petrol companies and fossil fuelled power stations are going to suffer. But, if these industries change their strategy to include the new markets and resources, then they will be able to continue. The whole "economic problem" is caused by a sunk cost fallacy. History proves that this isn't the case. With the loss of horse stables due to the car, the loss of woodcut engravers with the invention of the printing press, and so on throughout history. Each time the people dependent on old was of doing things and who can't (or won't) change predict that the introduction of the new way will cause the collapse of the economy, and each time the economy has boomed after the change as the change created new markets and new industry. Even if there was no climate change, developing the renewable sources of energy and low carbon technologies would be worth doing because it will create new stimulus for the economies of the world.

To understand why a supernova occurs, you first have to understand how a star works (even at the most basic levels). A Star is an object that is balanced between gravitational collapse and a fusion explosion. As a cloud of gas collapses under its own gravity, it heat up. Even small amounts of gas do this. If you feel the valve of a tire that has been pumped up recently, it will be warmer (actually be careful here as it can be hot enough to burn you). This is because when you pump the tire up, you are compressing gas (air). Now, with a star, the amount of compression is immense. The cloud can be several light years across (although very diffuse) and it gets compressed to a diameter ranging from less than 200,000km to a maximum of around 1,794,000,000km. Because gravity compresses it, it heats up and the pressures rise. Eventually it gets hot enough and with enough pressure to force hydrogen atoms to fuse together into helium. This releases energy and makes the star hotter still. The more compressed the star the greater the rate of fusion, and the heavier the element it can fuse (because the heavier the element the more energy it take to cause fusion, and the less energy released). Hot gasses expand, and this extra heat from the fusion will eventually balance out the force of gravity. At this point the star is stable and will continue to fuse hydrogen into helium. However, because more and more heavy elements build up in the star, the less energy is put out to keep the star hot, as the star cools a bit, the force of gravity over comes the force of the pressure from the fusion reaction and the star begins again to compress. But, there is still a lot of hydrogen in the star and this new collapse triggers even more hydrogen to fuse along with some of the heavier elements. In a small enough star, this just causes it to expand significantly and become a red giant. However, if the star is massive enough, this collapse occurs faster and with more force causing a rapid rise in the fusion rate. This massive burst of energy from fusion is enough to blast the star apart. This is called a supernova. (ok, the above is not 100% accurate, but that is due to the fact that I am trying to make it simple, the actual process is much more complex than that, but the above is a pretty brief overview of how stars work and supernova occur). Actually, Earth has been hit about the same as the other inner planets. The reason we don't see many impact craters on Earth is because we have a thick atmosphere and an active water cycle. The atmosphere and water cycle tend to erode craters away. We have some big ones too. The Chicxulub crater off the Yucatan peninsula in Mexico is around 180km in diameter and has lasted for around 65,000,000 years (yes this is the same date as when the dinosaurs went extinct). There are smaller ones like Meteor Crater in Texas and about 1.2km in diameter (and only about 50,000 years old). There are of course smaller ones as well, but they don't tend to last long. The other thing is that the surface of the Earth is around 75% water, so that means 3 out of 4 meteors that hit the Earth hit the oceans, and if it is not too big (the Chicxulub asteroid was much too big) then there will not be any crater to mark its location (and even if it is big enough, we might never see the crater as it could be in the middle of an ocean). If you have ever seen meteors in the sky at night, then you have seen small particles (not much bigger than rice grains actually) hitting our atmosphere. So we are being hit all the time. However the atmosphere it just too thick to let these smaller ones through (but still, some are beg enough to hit and you do hear of them occasionally). So between the thick atmosphere that acts as a shield against small strikes and can weather down even the large craters, and the water which can absorb an impact, hide a crater and also weather down craters, this explains why we don't see many impact craters on Earth. If we didn't have these, the Earth would look something a bit like the Moon with all its craters.

The reason is energy. You can't get energy from nothing. Teh sun is a gravitational object, that is it has gravity. To move anything further away from a gravitating object requires energy The more massive the gravitating object is, or the mass of the object you want to move is, the more energy it takes. To give you an idea of how much energy it does take, to life a rocket a few hundred kilometres up, requires a rocket to be around 90% to 95% fuel by mass, and this includes the loss of mass of the fuel as it is burnt too . Now a planet is much, must more massive than a rocket, also the sun is much, much more massive than a planet. So to move a planet out would require the sun to loose so much of its mass that it would no longer be able to give birth to another planet (it would probably end up with less mass than the planet), let alone enough mass to keep it working (to compress the hydrogen gravitationally to cause fusion). So, the reason your theory can't work is that it would require so much energy just to move a single planet out that you would be left without a sun to spawn any more planets to enough mass of the sun to keep it being a sun.

This is the mistake. It is not a "point in space" (or an explosion for that matter). What it is, is more and more space being created. The mistake of the "explosion at a single point in space" leads to a lot of misunderstandings. One of the big ones is that the "explosion" needs something to expand into. Once someone can understand this aspect of the Big Bang, that it is not an explosion, but that space is being created (and BTW, it is still going on, the big bang is still happening because space is still being created today), then they can start to understand what is really meant by "Big Bang" (and Big Bang was a term used to try and ridicule the concept of an expanding, non static universe).

I think it wouldn't change much. Those of us who are old enough might remember Margaret Thatcher: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher#Foreign_affairs . I think it is more the systems that lead us to war, than human nature (but yes, there is probably some degree of human nature in there as well). If you think about it, the people who are most driven to lead and to put their desire to lead above other concerns are more likely to become leaders. This, of course does not mean that someone who isn't as driven can't become a leader, only that they are less likely to because other concerns can dominate their limited time, attention and resources. So, with these strongly driven people also comes a certain form of aggressiveness (because if they are too passive the aggressive people will defeat them). With aggression comes war. So, although it is human nature (aggression), it is the system that selects for the more driven and aggressive people to become leaders.

If at all.

Dark matter is called dark matter because it doesn't interact with the electromagnetic field. However light is an electromagnetic wave, so it would be impossible to have "Dark Light" .

We have a pretty good idea what the internals of the Earth are, this is because of listening to Earthquakes. Have you haver been for an Ultrasound medical check up? This uses sound waves that travel through your body and bounce off the various organs. The differences between your organs in your body (mass, density, water content, etc) effect the sound waves form the ultrasound and these changes are picked up and translated into the images you see on the screen. It is much the same with the Earth and Earthquakes. Earthquakes set off vibrations that travel through the Earth. These are just the same as sound waves in an ultrasound, only at a much lower frequency. Seismometers pick up up the resulting vibrations and record them. From these we can see the way that the various materials inside the Earth change the waves, just like in the medical ultrasound. From the changes we can look at the mass, density and other properties that caused the vibrations to change and tell what they are. From this we know that the core of the Earth is mostly an Iron-Nickel solid, surrounded by a liquid iron-nickel outer core, which is then surrounded by the lower mantle made from silicate rocks and the upper mantle also made from silicate rocks (but the pressure is low enough to make them much more ductile) and then finally the crust. Of course, seismic surveys are not the only source of that has been used to determine the structure of the Earth's interior and there is a lot of data that has been collated to determine this. Now, a white dwarf or brown dwarf would consist mainly of hydrogen, not Iron, nickel or silica. The only way these are produced is in very violent and destructive stellar explosions (like supernova). We know this because of the physics. When you create heavier elements from lighter elements (called fusion), at first it releases energy, but the more massive the resulting element the less energy it produces, eventually getting to the point where it takes energy to fuse atoms together and you don't get any energy out of it but loose energy to the process. Actually if you do the reverse to these heavier elements, called fission, this will release energy and this is the source of the energy in a nuclear bomb or nuclear power plant.

I agree that in a story there might be something of value, even if the characters of that story are complete fiction. But, to those that believe in the bible and in God, they take the step beyond just accepting that there is value in the story, into believing that God has an existence. For example, If I just thought that the stories in the bible were just that fictional stories and that God didn't exist, then why would any of the rituals associated with those stories apply to me? Why would it be necessary for me to go to church on Sunday? Why would I have to pray? Why would I have to seek absolution from sin? Why would I have to partake in communion? By performing these rituals, one claims belief in the tenants of the religion and that they have a real existence. That is, it is more than allegory. If you don't believe in a God as a real being, then you are by definition and Atheist. It is perfectly possible for an Atheist to read the bible and just accept that what is written there have value without needing it to be real. However, to be a Theist, you have to take the leap from God not being real to God being real. IF you believe that God is real, you can not, by definition, be an Atheist. However, this is the only real difference. Anything else about a particular book (holy or not) is irrelevant. One can be a Theist and believe that the bible is a load of fantastical nonsense, so long as they believe that God is real. And it is here I think you are getting confused. You seem to be assuming that if one claims to be an Atheist, one also have to think that there is no value in the bible. This is kind of like a reverse "No True Scotsman" logical fallacy. All I am saying is that if you believe that God is an allegory and not real, then you can not, by definition, be a Theist and are instead an Atheist. Even without the existence of a God, there can be real value in the bible. Even if the bible has no moral/ethical substance, what it does show is how different cultures saw the world, how they thought differently to us and in what ways they thought the same. So, even without anything else of value, the bible can be of value as a cultural artefact. But of course, there are still lessons that can be learnt from the bible, even if those lessons are "Don't do what is written in it..."

"Light as a wave needs a medium of propagation." This is your initial premise. However, you never prove it must be so. Thus, if we can disprove this premise, then your entire argument is disproved. Light is an electromagnetic wave. This can be shown in how it interacts with electricity and with magnetism. A wave is a regular variation that moves through a medium, such as water wave through water. However, the medium does not have to have a positive value, it can be at potential of 0. With a potential of 0, the medium can be said not to exist as it has no potential to do anything at that point. A light wave, is a regular variation in the electromagnetic field. As such, there is no need to introduce a substance that has no effect on light and is not needed for it to function the way we know it to be, thus any "aether" is a completely redundant term and according to Occam's razor, we can get rid of it. As everything about light can be explained without reference to an aether, your entire post becomes disproven)as your post requires that the aether explain the properties of light).

Einstein said that the most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible. With this, I disagree. The reason that the Universe is comprehensible is that it has regular patterns of behaviours. One such is that if you have two things that are separate, but then put them together, you don't suddenly get any more or less of them (conservation of matter/energy). An example is if you have two apples, and put them next to each other, you don't suddenly get 3 or 1.5 apples. Now, this might seem a trivial example, but consider this: Does it have to be so? It is possible that a Universe with completely different laws of physics and conservation laws could exist where such an effect is possible? Yes, but, in such a universe it would be completely irrational from our point of view. In other words, it would be incomprehensible. Now, we have grown up and evolved (if you will, or created for if you don't) for a universe where the conservation laws hold. Thus it makes sense that when you have two separate things and put them together you don't end up with any less or more of them. This is also the basic foundation of mathematics. 1 + 1 = 2. It is another expression of the conservation laws. Maths is just a description of the way the universe works. If we had different conservation laws (eg: where 1 + 1 = 3) then we would have a completely different maths, where the regularities of the new system are reflected by the processes we think of as maths. Just as their maths would be incomprehensible to us, ours would be incomprehensible to them. But, in each case, it would reflect the basic workings of that particular universe. It is also possible that a universe could exist without any regular behaviours, and in such a universe maths could not exist. But then neither could any structure that relied on regular phenomena either, such as living systems and intelligence (so there would be no one to ask this question in that kind of universe) So, as Maths is just the labelling of patterns, and as we require the existence of regular patters for our existence and for intelligence to function, then it is no wonder that we live in a universe that can be describe with maths (because maths is a consequence of a universe that exhibits regular behaviours). The "Theory of Evolution" is just a description of a phenomena that exists and has been observed to exist. The theory states that if a system (living or otherwise) has certain properties and exhibits certain processes, then it will have certain outcomes of behaviour. Specifically, that if a system has replication with inheritance and variation, and that the entities in it have some form of selection that limits who can replicate, then it will exhibit what is called Evolution. Whether this is data in computer programs, chemical reactions or living organisms makes no difference. If the system has those properties and functions, then you will get evolution (because evolution is defined as the outcome of system that have those properties. It can even be shown to be mathematically true through Algorithmic theory -> Algebraic theory -> Numeric theory. Evolution is a process that can be described as an Turing type Algorithm (ie: a computer program). As Alan Turing showed all Turing systems (eg: A computer is a universal Turing system) are mathematical as each instruction must conform to logic (a subset of maths). Each instruction being mathematical can be shown to have an equivalent in Algebraic form. Algebra is a generalisation of Numbers, that is using symbols to represent processes you can do to any type of number. Because of this, Evolution can be proven to be 100% true, so long as maths holds to be true (that is so long as 1 + 1 = 2). Also, even if 1 + 1 was shown not to be 2, this would not mean that evolution is not true, just that it can't be proven to be 100% true.