Dekan

This sounds like a potential best-seller. Just to make sure, why not make your female character an early fighter for women's rights? And her male partner could be a keen environmentalist, intent on saving the gazelles. That's got to be a winning formula! Admittedly, it may have nothing to do with life in the Pleistocene. But it would please readers, so publishers would go for it. On your point about language, you could just make it up. Like William Golding did in "The Inheritors". He has Neanderthals speaking to each other in implausibly complex grammatical and syntactical sentence structures, even when they couldn't recognise a Hom. Sap bow and arrow, or figure out how to bridge a stream with a log of wood. Just consider that any story about life in Kenya 1.5 my ago is bound to be pure speculation. So write a good story, and earn some money!

I think religion must have some evolutionary advantage for humans, because otherwise why would we keep practising it?

Hello studiot, are you being wilfully obtuse

I think that's profoundly true. Anyone with reasonable intelligence can learn how to manipulate mathematical equations. Conceptual thinking is harder.

As CCWilson very perceptively suggests, some force (as yet undiscovered) probably intervenes to prevent the collapse to a "singularity". The idea that billions of tons of matter can collapse into some kind of "zero-point" nothingness, may simplify our maths. But I doubt it happens in reality,

When you say "everything else", would you make an exception for "sound". That definitely does seem to be frame-related, ie to atmospheric density. At sea-level, where the atmosphere is densest, the speed of sound (Mach 1) is about 760 mph. But at a higher altitude, say 30,000 ft, Mach 1 decreases to about 660 mph. So consider a aircraft which can fly at a maximum speed (relative to the ground), of 700 mph. If it flies at that speed nearly at ground-level, (obviously a few hundred feet above), it will be "subsonic" - ie below Mach 1. Whereas if the plane flies at 30,000 ft, it will exceed Mach 1, and so be "supersonic". The words "subsonic" and "supersonic" are thus "frame-related". And so "sound" has a definite frame - atmospheric density.

So, So the proton is experimentally shown to be bigger than the electron?

I could claim that electrons are smaller than protons. For this reason - that protons are "composite" objects. Each proton is made of a Down-quark, and a pair of Up-quarks. That's three components. Whereas, an electron isn't "composite". It has only one component - itself. Now, it seems to me, that even if the components are "point-like", an object with only one such component (such as an electron), is bound to be smaller than an object with three of them (such as a proton). After all, when we talk of of "point-like" components , surely we don't mean they have zero-dimensions. If they had, they'd have no physical existence. We mean they're just very small, like a "." If so, then an electron which is just . is clearly smaller than a proton, which is ...

If we can work out the answers by doing "Thought Experiments" , why bother with any actual physical tests? Couldn't we just program our thoughts into a computer simulation, run it, then write down what it says.

That's a good question. I'd say it was when we invented hospitals. Because they benefit the sick people, but expose the nurses and doctors to dangerous diseases. Only humans would run such a risk of their own free will. The recent ebola outbreaks have show the superiority of humans to animals. The animals would just die, or run away. They wouldn't care for each other, as humans do. I do wish you'd stop denigrating humans. I suppose your're doing it for fashionable PC or Green considerations. But please show some pride in your own species!

Well, I think it's all a load of carp.

When you say "everywhere and nowhere is the center", aren't you contradicting the Big Bang theory? This theory says that the Universe began at a central point. Which then expanded outwards, in all directions. That must result in the formation of a sphere. And surely a sphere, by definition, has a center?

Skeptic, aren't you being wilfully obtuse? We have free will, for this blatantly obvious reason - because we can freely choose to study, in a laboratory, the behaviour of all other animals, such as rats. But the rats cannot freely choose to study, in a laboratory, the behaviour of us humans. That surely shows our human superiority. (42 mice might be an exception - if they're pan-dimensional beings)

I can't believe all this. Scotland becoming a foreign country! Passports, Border Controls, separate currency - three centuries of British progress thrown in the dustbin of history! Ruddy nightmare. I blame the EU. Thank God it won't happen. Will it?

Skeptic, there's a cosmic difference between humans and dogs. Otherwise, we wouldn't even be having this discussion. We'd just be enjoying sniffing each other's bottoms.

Perhaps your questions already imply the answers, which may be these: 1. Other species such as chimpanzees, dolphins, dogs, cats and birds don't have free-will. Because the species are governed by instinct. Which is a kind of biological programming of their brains. Similar to when a computer is programmed to execute an instruction. Like: "IF N=0 THEN LET N= N+1". That's the kind of instruction that canine brains are programmed to obey. So, suppose a dog is hungry, and its eyes spot a sausage. Clearly its brain says: "IF BELLY = EMPTY THEN LET BELLY = BELLY PLUS SAUSAGE". And so the dog proceeds to execute its programming, by eating the sausage. It can do no other. Moral considerations play no part. The dog's brain is programmed, and isn't capable of breaking its programming. 2. Whereas, humans are different. We can break our programming. By for example, deliberately choosing, despite the hunger in our belly, NOT to eat the sausage. And give it instead to another starving human being who, we feel, needs it more. We do that from empathy, pity, or a sense of morality - who knows? Whatever the reason, it shows we have free-will. 3. This free-will probably comes from our having bigger brains than dogs, and indeed all other animals. (Except whales - but their huge bodies use up all their brains' resources). When the human brain reached a certain size, it attained a "critical mass". It burst into unprecedented new power. Like when U-235 attains enough mass to create a nuclear explosion. This is simplistic perhaps, but isn't truth ultimately simple?

Thanks for your kind post. I scanned the Wikipedia article on the "Dunning-Kruger Effect" (what an absolutely delicious name!) The D-K Effect, when stripped of its customary coating of verbal effluvia, seems to boil down to this invaluable insight: "When you're dumb, you're too dumb to realise that you're dumb". Well, who'd ever have thought that? Regarding your suggestion that "reality doesn't care what anyone believes" - isn't that a little bit at odds with QT - observer-generated wave-function collapse, and stuff? Thanks again, I do appreciate not being banned (yet).

In thirty years time, he might be remembered as a patriotic folk-hero. Who fought for the preservation of Norway. It all depends on who's got control of Norway in 2044. Isn't that how history works?

Thanks John - I tried to read the linked article. But found it a huge impenetrable mass of deplorable pseudo-scientific verbiage. Just management-speak, with added scientific words to jazz it up. The only bit that that stuck in my mind was this: "Participants observing negative flanker targets underestimated less than positive or negative targets". Is that advice to NATO radar operators on getting range estimates for Su-27 fighter jets? Obviously not But it might as well be, for all the sense it makes. Surely the article boils down to this - we believe what we want to believe. Like man-made Climate Change. If you want to believe in it, you will. And if you don't want to, you won't.

Swansont, you may be too idealistic in your view. You're probably right, that specific bits of Science - "works in progress", as you put it - can get modified in the light of new information. But my point is this: once an over-arching general idea has been accepted, it isn't easily got rid of. I know from your always impressive posts, that you're a true scientist, and have a good knowledge of scientific history. So you surely know, that the history of Science contains quite a few examples of great scientists who resisted change . Like Galileo, Cavendish, Lord Kelvin, and - most prominently - Einstein, who until his dying day, never really embraced Quantum Theory. I think this lends some support to my basic contention, which is that Science progresses, when old scientists die, and new scientists replace them. So getting back to the "Man-made Global Warming" business. This current theory will hold the field until about 2025 at max. Then it'll be "disproved" by a new (revisionist) scientific generation. Who will warn of "Global Cooling", and the urgent need to increase anthropogenic carbon emissions - to ward off an incipient new Ice Age. Or perhaps by then, we'll just get on with doing our own thing, and adapt as necessary to the Earth's natural climate cycles. But I doubt it. We need a threat of Doomsday, don't we? Because these days it's different. The World Wide Web has unfortunately propagated the views of the AGW community to the whole planet. They've got everyone on Earth worried about "carbon-footprints"! Supposedly. Actually, most people can recognise a load of cobblers when they see it. But anyway, any backing-down, would cause AGW proponents a massive loss of face, and humiliation on a global scale. Therefore, we must wait until they die, or quietly retire, before new sane views can be brought in. That will be by 2025, probably, though hopefully sooner.

Revenge is an intense feeling of personal satisfaction. Justice, or Road Traffic Accidents, are only weak substitutes.

That's right - it's a blatant computer app.

Look at Science from a human point of view. Nobody likes to lose face. Especially the thousands of scientists who've signed-up to "Man-made Global Warming". They've committed themselves to the idea. So, suppose the idea were proved wrong. What would happen? It would cause a devastating loss of face. Everyone who believed in the discredited idea would look silly. So the idea must be kept going. At least until all the old scientists who believed in it, are safely dead, or senile. Then new young scientists, will see more clearly. Isn't that how Science works?

Post #1 is obviously computer-generated. You can tell easily.

True, but some words are now so absolutely taboo, that their mere mention is not just a matter of "tut -tutting". Rather, they guarantee instant exit from the whole website. This seems a new, irrational, non-scientific phenomenon of recent years