Phi for All

Why can't religion be discussed and studied rationally as a phenomenon then? You've been posting like the others in this discussion are defending specific religious practices, when in fact most (if not all) are atheists of various flavors. Of course religions have a basis in reality. You need the natural phenomena people encounter regularly to fill the gaps in their knowledge with the supernatural.

I'm going to step away from this thread as a poster, since it seems all the mods have been involved. ! Moderator Note mistermack, it doesn't present a conflict of interest for me to say that your objection to providing support for assertions you make isn't acceptable here or anyplace else on the site. "Tedious" may be your definition of "rigorous" and "reasoned" and "well-supported", but nobody else here is that sloppy. If you want to keep posting here, you need to follow the rules. Some people like to take a conversation to places it's never been. They don't care if it's dirty and uncomfortable and their conversational clothes get filthy. Conversations like that are interesting, and most folks learn a great deal from such discussions. Your discussion style, however, doesn't take us into the filth; it starts out with dirty hands, and insists on making everybody else deal with it. Our clothes don't get dirty because we were mucking about in unfamiliar places, but rather because we have to keep refuting the information you refuse to support, and get frustrated when you can't even be bothered to acknowledge it. There may not be any overall resolutions to any of our discussions, but most would like to see something close. That's only going to happen if everyone involved is arguing in good faith.

I partly blame popular science articles that turn "We don't know the exact mechanism" into "It's a mystery that leaves scientists completely baffled". The sensationalism invites people to throw out anything that might stick, because hey, we're talking about completely baffled scientists, right? If they don't know the exact mechanism, they don't know anything, right? We're all at the guessing stage, so my "theory" is just as valid as anyone else's, right?

This seems to suggest all Jews in Israel are happy people. Is this what you meant?

Insisting on the use of vague terms is probably why you don't understand it, but that doesn't mean NOBODY really understands it. The study has been broken down to remove any vagueness. All you need to do is pick your area (cognition? behaviors? emotional patterns?) and pick an approach to drill down for better information. No need to make up words like "coaliscion", or come up with your own ideas . All you have to do is study what's been discovered already, and ask questions about the parts you don't understand. This type of science is more fact-based, and less opinion-related.

So that's a big NO on providing any kind of support for your reasoning? I ask because it seems important to you that I be specific, even though you hold yourself to a lower standard.

At least in the US there seems to be: https://www.gertstulp.com/pdf/Stulp et al 2013_TLQ_Presidential height.pdf

So define "higher powers" using natural terms, and remember that "definitely" means "without doubt". How could you possibly know not only that "higher powers" exist without doubt, but also that "they", WITHOUT DOUBT, don't want us praying to them? The little evidence we do have about deities suggests they're all about praying and worship. You're making an extraordinary claim, so please support it with some extraordinary evidence.

This isn't correct. If there's a correlation, it's that people tend to prefer leaders with taller stature, not that taller people make natural leaders. The fact that we see them as more capable doesn't make them more capable.

Oh, which ones? I don't know of a single bird type that gives birth to live offspring. Educate me! We can show mountains of evidence that chickens didn't magically appear out of thin air. Science isn't interested in proof, but rather in the best supported explanations. It is NOT all speculation. Who on Earth taught you that? Science studies the natural world, so anything that claims to be supernatural is on its own. That's why religions can make up any damn thing they want to, but science has to stick to the evidence. Many people have beliefs that seem magical to others. It's not what we're interested in discussing here, though.

So basically you have a bad opinion of him that you want to spin as fact. I haven't seen you once support any of these attacks on his person, and you try to argue that he's an idiot for being a leader who won't back down. I don't mind you having dumb reasoning, but it's so obvious you can't support it with more than hot air from your waving hands, and while your agenda may not be obvious, it still has a smell to it that seems on brand for you. Just sayin'.

Writing the letters and punctuation on Cheese Nips was a stroke of genius, I must say.

Very few university science professors would go to such lengths for the perfect pickled onion, so um, well done. Is the placenta used in the brine, or are you picking the onions in utero?

Part of the problem is that folks who don't read mainstream science probably won't read what's posted here. The methodology doesn't always seem intuitive. Some folks think it's all guesswork and they just want to toss their two cents in the ring like everybody else.

! Moderator Note Moved from Speculations to The Lounge. I'm an entrepreneur resisting retirement who started moderating discussion forums about 18 years ago. I read much more than I post. swansont is an atomic physicist working with the US Naval Observatory's atomic clocks. I thank him every time GPS works and my phone guides me to my destination.

Buai has been banned for an anti-intellectual agenda of racism and ignorance.

Here's where studying evolution would really help. Eggs don't evolve. Evolution is the change in allele frequency within a population over time. So what happened was that a creature who was almost what we classify as a chicken laid an egg that became eggxactly what we classify as a chicken.

Folks, even in Speculations we don't bring up religion, and for several good reasons.

! Moderator Note That's enough! Stop posting garbage that's demonstrably false in our mainstream science sections.

https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/health/why-do-small-dogs-live-longer/ I'm not sure this reasoning is good. Some fruit trees live as long as some house cats. And some smaller animals live much longer than some larger ones, as CharonY mentioned. And besides that, trying to make humans bigger in order to extend life expectancy would seem to create more problems than it solves. Better healthcare, better nutrition, more attention to safety, all these things show a much better chance of succeeding. You like herring, do you?

Cats, in general, live longer than dogs. Small dogs, in general, live longer than big dogs. And yet the oldest trees aren't the largest. It's looking like your idea is incomplete. And like most phenomena, there is no single scientific explanation, especially for complex lifeforms (don't say "energy lifeforms" unless you're prepared to define this for us). There are lots of factors in this instance besides size. Some lifeforms (like cats) live longer because they live a more isolated life, and aren't as prone to disease as herd and pack species are. Some creatures live in stages where size has less of an impact than function. We're already getting so big that many babies have to be cut out of their mothers at birth. Bigger size means using more resources, and that's another "big" problem. I think your solutions are far too simplistic for the complex stuff you're talking about. I really wish you'd put that wonderful mind to use studying mainstream science rather than trying to solve all problems with a hammer you made yourself.

! Moderator Note Making things up isn't how science is done. Perhaps you need to start a blog somewhere. Everyone here is interested in discussing mainstream science.

! Moderator Note This isn't mainstream physics, so I'm moving it to Speculations, but it's got some problems you need to fix before it can be seriously discussed here. "Continuum" is actually defined by its wholeness, and the fact that it isn't divisible. Also, energy is a property of things, not a thing itself, so the universe can't be "made of light energy". Also also, using the non-scientific term "founding fathers" wrt the geometry of space is just confusing, so you may want to study some terminology instead of making it up.

! Moderator Note This is a mainstream science section. Please keep your pet ideas out of it. If you can support any of this, start your own thread in Speculations, please.

Love it. The two stories I'm thinking about most right now? That Russian tank that swerved to crush that civilian vehicle, and how the tough old man survived while his fellow Ukrainians helped free him from the crushed wreckage. I'm juxtaposing that with a story I heard about what the Ukrainians are doing to Russian soldiers they've captured. They're encouraging them to phone their families and friends back in Russia. "Let them know that you're safe and unharmed, because your loved ones must all be freaking out that you were fighting and now you're captured, right?" These are the kinds of things Putin can't stand up to. Right isn't always in might's corner.