Mr Skeptic

Indeed; this is the main point of philosophy and logic. You start from premises, and from them you reach conclusions. You can do this just fine if you don't really believe the premises. The point however is that you have to state your premises that you are working from, and everyone should agree at the end, if you have sound logic, that anyone who accepts said premises must accept the conclusions. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Perhaps, but then by the same argument, the atheists are refusing to learn that there is a god, so then the religious people are going to call them stupid. Then we have a nice mudslinging match and name-calling rather than thoughtful discussion. I think we all prefer thoughtful discussion, and its also much likelier to convert people than insulting them.

I do believe we addressed this in the new set of rules for these sections of the forum, in the form of "don't insult anyone" and "if someone seems to be insulting you don't treat it as an insult". http://www.scienceforums.net/forum/announcement.php?f=164&a=16 Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Indeed, if your entire argument is based on the presumption that your baseless assumptions or opinions are better than the other guy's baseless assumptions or opinions, no one can objectively call one set nonsense. Thus, the other side (or neutral observers) will see it as a baseless insult, rather than as an accurate label. Now, you can claim that your assumptions and opinions are self-consistent (for example, with your use of Occam's Razor to minimize your assumptions), but then so can many religious people (for example the assumption that their god exists and does X, Y, and Z). Since not everyone accepts the same interpretation of the Bible, you also will not be able to point out contradictions there as evidence unless it contradicts something they have expressed as their opinion or assumptions. Really it gets very complicated very quickly. So we pretty much consider it all subjective.

Tact does not require dishonesty.

I'm pretty sure that if you mix sodium hydroxide with chlorine the chlorine is going to react with the sodium. So, any Na you get reacts with the water immediately to form NaOH, and if you did manage to form Cl, it would react with that and you're back where you started. Meanwhile, the H2O is much easier to split apart.

What is Sesame Street coming to these days? Look at this video (it has been censored, but I assume you can figure out what the bleeped out word is). Can you believe this show is supposedly for kids?!? B-Wd-Q3F8KM

From xkcd.org: Lego It's only slightly humorous, mostly I put it here because people should really consider being organ donors. You could save someone's life and/or improve the quality of life for potentially quite a few people. It could be the most significant thing you do in your life, and all it takes is a penstroke.

From your link, Myth: You unknowingly swallow an average of four live spiders in your sleep each year. Fact: This very widespread urban legend has no basis in fact.

Ohh, ohh, I think I electrolysed myself some cesium!

http://www.sanjeev.net/wordplay/Ending-with-MT.html

Happy Atheist Day from my pastor. The fool says in his heart, "There is no God." -- Psalm 14:1

Found on an amusingly misplaced mirror in a men's bathroom near the college hokey rink (cause I put it there): Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who has the biggest one of all? The urinal can be seen from the hallway. Seems the folks who designed the bathroom didn't do their homework.

If a man speaks in a forest, and his wife is not there to hear him, is he still wrong?

Thanks, npts2020, that is a very interesting article. Especially for me, since I am studying genetics this semester.

That is pretty much right. The whole body would not need to be changed, just most of the genetic code. Proteins not directly related to the DNA (which make up most of the mass of the body) could remain unchanged. Another aspect of the triple stranded genetic material idea is that it would make medicine so much easier. The triple strand could have far lower mutation rate, possibly enough to make cancer unlikely. More importantly, it would give medicine a new weapon against disease -- anything that destroys DNA would kill all bacteria, and the DNA viruses, and the different structure would grant inherent immunity to retroviruses. That would leave RNA viruses as the only disease that would be untreatable, as well as any bacteria that gained resistance to DNA destroying substances.

A triple helix is not impossible, but you would have to use something other than DNA. It wouldn't increase your strength, but it would add significant protection from mutation.

No, you wouldn't be able to use DNA. DNA forms double strands, and there would be no room for a third strand. Given that DNA forms the basis of most of your biology, it would be extremely hard to change.

Sorry, DNA only works in a double helix. Kind of how you can't stick two keys in a lock, the two DNA strands match each other. If you wanted a triple helix, you'd have to use a different molecule, and would change the vary basis of biology. You would die, unless you rewrote all your transcription factors to work with the triple helix.

I've heard that most modern printers print their serial number in extremely hard to see yellow dots. Also, that they have somehow recognize and refuse to print stuff that looks like money. http://www.devtopics.com/your-color-printer-may-blow-your-privacy/

Wiki also has an article on head transplants, but I haven't checked out the references.

That's probably "energy from digestion"? Actually, it's because TNT has pathetically little energy, since it contains and is already partially combined with its own oxidizer. He might not have included the weight of the oxygen needed to consume the cookies, but even so, they would have more energy since the oxygen is not combined with the cookies. Also, people think TNT has a lot of energy since it can release it quickly.

Bad to normal? I thought they were great!

I'll volunteer.

How about an oscillating chemical reaction? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Briggs-Rauscher_reaction

Sorry, Sayonora3. You may soon need a new avatar

A cute table, but it looks like they just took chunks off the periodic table and spaced them out... same information, slightly clearer grouping, but less space efficient (and the table is already a monster for size).