iNow

That is hugely important. A word change alone carries with it it's own problems, as there are actually 1,138 federal laws which pertain to "married" couples, but would not pertain to those in a "civil union." http://www.factcheck.org/what_is_a_civil_union.html When politicians say they support civil unions but not marriage for people of the same sex, what do they mean? We find three main differences between civil unions and marriage as it's traditionally viewed: The right to federal benefits. States that allow some type of same-sex union are able to grant only state rights. The Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996 prohibits same-sex couples from receiving federal marriage rights and benefits. Portability. Because civil unions are not recognized by all states, such agreements are not always valid when couples cross state lines. Terminology. "Marriage" is a term that conveys societal and cultural meaning, important to both gay rights activists and those who don't believe gays should marry. The Government Accountability Office lists 1,138 federal laws that pertain to married couples. Many in that long list may be minor or only relevant to small groups of citizens. However, a number of provisions are key to what constitutes a marriage legally in the United States: I whole-heartedly agree with your point that the concept and functionality must shift. The challenge is that we're required to do so within our existing legal framework and at both the state and federal level.

That's probably because there is really no such thing. There is perhaps cleaner coal, but clean coal is an oxymoron. It's like saying "desirable AIDS."

Yeah, and it sure didn't help that my basis for understanding momentum was based on a misconception.

I certainly appreciate the principle on which you're standing, ParanoiA, but it misses the importance of being pragmatic. It's as if we're trying to end slavery, and you're suggesting that we instead focus our discussions on the deeper considerations of why we chose to start growing cotton instead of food when voluntary labor resources were unavailable. There is a time and a place for each. They can be discussed in parallel, but one discussion should not be silenced at the expense of the other. We can talk about removing state legislation of all marriage while also working to ensure any existing legislations regarding marriage are nondiscriminatory. Let's end slavery AND talk about the merits of choosing to grow cotton instead of food despite shortages of voluntary labor. You said it yourself. The logic of both checks out. A fair compromise?

Neither of your definitions are valid in a scientific context. If you were trying for humor, it didn't translate well. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory#Science

Since you've chosen to be so indignant, I'll take that to mean you have no idea what you're talking about, nor can you support anything you say. Thanks for showing everyone how unworthy your quote unquote contributions to these threads really are.

Right. I thank you for the info, but I really don't care. People can name their kid after any mythology figure they want. Name your kid Thor or Ba'al. No skin off my back. Naming your kid Adolf Hitler, however, only proves that your genes should have long again been removed from the gene pool.

Well, I can pretty much guarantee you that we don't. What now? Sorry, my dog (surely smarter than you, as even he knows how to encourage people to help him and assist with his needs/desires in a polite fashion) is too busy licking his nut sack right now to trouble himself with a whiner like you.

Apparently you're not Mexican, either.

Then it really should not be difficult for you to act like a serious scientist and supply references in support of your claims. So, I ask again, can you please offer me supporting information so that I can better understand?

It does ultimately go to the brain for interpretation, but the reaction happens MUCH before the signal every gets there. These may help: http://www.unmc.edu/physiology/Mann/mann15.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflex_arc

Tom - Please back this up with a source or a citation, or some calculations perhaps. This doesn't seem correct, and I'd like to read more about it. Again, asserting the truth of your own comments isn't really useful to us who are trying to understand your point and learn more about the reality around us. Please share a source or two which support your statements. Same as above. I'd like to validate that you're not just pulling stuff out of your hiney and expecting us to accept it as fact.

Close, but that's not really a source. That's a press release. This is your source: http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v79/i9/p1626_1 Positron Production in Multiphoton Light-by-Light Scattering Received 2 June 1997 A signal of 106±14 positrons above background has been observed in collisions of a low-emittance 46.6 GeV electron beam with terawatt pulses from a Nd:glass laser at 527 nm wavelength in an experiment at the Final Focus Test Beam at SLAC. The positrons are interpreted as arising from a two-step process in which laser photons are backscattered to GeV energies by the electron beam followed by a collision between the high-energy photon and several laser photons to produce an electron-positron pair. These results are the first laboratory evidence for inelastic light-by-light scattering involving only real photons. ©1997 The American Physical Society URL: http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.79.1626 DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.79.1626 PACS: 13.40.-f, 12.20.Fv, 14.70.Bh

Some people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce. The bakery wouldn't put his name in frosting on the birthday cake... they refused. He's going to be dealing with this for the rest of his life.

Post #4 implies otherwise. There must be a source, and it must be transfered somehow through a conductor. If either of those are missing, you should see a psychiatrist instead of a physicist or electrician.

IIRC = "If I recall correctly..." It's just shorthand for online communication, like BRB = Be Right Back... Not related to biology at all.

I think so. I see nearly everything we do to be another "evolutionary step," but a lot of that depends on how you classify such steps.

It's the iNow Phantom Pagination Syndrome: http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/showthread.php?t=33394

Yup. Like I said, still waiting on those references, north.

And this is supposed to be helpful to a person asking a question, how exactly?

Still waiting on those references, north.

I presume it would depend entirely on which math (which set of assumptions... which system, etc.) you are using. The word "manifold" and the name "Minkowski" come to mind.

Wanna do some math? Add the bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs, and let's multiply. If I could make any compound, I would make uranium iodide, so I could put U and I together! I like every bone in your body, especially mine. This is fun.

The site censor. Mine was always, "Do you like peanut butter? Me, too. Wanna Fock?" You must have a mirror in your pocket, because I can see myself in your pants. (perhaps related to optics and Newton?)

You might enjoy this recent article in Scientific American. http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-latest-face-of-creationism Creationists continue to agitate against the teaching of evolution in public schools, adapting their tactics to match the roadblocks they encounter. Past strategies have included portraying creationism as a credible alternative to evolution and disguising it under the name “intelligent design.” Other tactics misrepresent evolution as scientifically controversial and pretend that advocates for teaching creationism are defending academic freedom. Vast areas of evolutionary science are for all intents and purposes scientifically settled; textbooks and curricula used in the public schools present precisely such basic, uncomplicated, uncontroversial material. Telling students that evolution is a theory in crisis is—to be blunt—a lie. Moreover, it is a dangerous lie, because Dobzhansky was right to say that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution: without evolution, it would be impossible to explain why the living world is the way it is rather than otherwise. Students who are not given the chance to acquire a proper understanding of evolution will not achieve a basic level of scientific literacy. And scientific literacy will be indispensable for workers, consumers and policymakers in a future dominated by medical, biotechnological and environmental concerns. In the sesquicentennial year of On the Origin of Species, it seems fitting to end with a reference to Charles Darwin’s seminal 1859 book. In the first edition of Origin of Species, Darwin was careful to acknowledge the limits to his project, writing, “I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.” Nevertheless, he was misinterpreted as claiming that natural selection was entirely responsible for evolution, provoking him to add a rueful comment to the sixth edition: “Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure.”