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beecee

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Everything posted by beecee

  1. Stop trying to put words into people's mouths...It's wrong, deceitful and unjust. War is evil and bad. The soldier in question was a conscientious objector that irrespective, obeyed the laws of the land at that time during a world war, and proved to be a hero in saving many lives of his comrades. He deserves recognition for his efforts. If you believe a law is wrong or unjust, do something about it, within the laws of the land. Waxing philsophically and rhetorically about it, on a remote science forum, won't get you anywhere. Or would you be in the minority in your society if you did do something practical reflecting your opposition? I took part in two anti Vietnam moratorium marches in Sydney in the sixties. But I still respected those troops that were conscripted and sent away, some never to return. We show them respect on a special day we call ANZAC Day in my country...a solemn day of rememberence, reflection, and honour.
  2. True enough, but we all prefer rationality. And I would argue that if one were atheist, and rejected religion as in belief in a creator/deity, then by reason the scientific explanation would be implied. Not knowing that much about Budhism I found this, "Buddhism has no creator god to explain the origin of the universe. Instead, it teaches that everything depends on everything else: present events are caused by past events and become the cause of future events." and... "There are many examples throughout the Buddhist world of non-scientific worldviews, such as dogmatism, fundamentalism, clericalism, devotion to supernatural spirits and deities. Nevertheless, since the 19th century, numerous modern figures have argued that Buddhism is rational and uniquely compatible with science." https://www.google.com/search?q=budhism+rationality&rlz=1C1RXQR_en-GBAU952AU952&oq=budhism+rationality&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i13j0i390l5.9568j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 So debatable at best. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/15665399.2008.10819972 https://scholarworks.smith.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=phi_facpubs The Way of the Dialetheist: Contradictions in Buddhism
  3. A reason in fact why our own star the Sun, is not part of a binary, trinary or bigger system...actually relatively rare in that respect.
  4. that would validate then what I was trying to say here....
  5. That maybe the case, but as I did mention aspects like mythical overtones, communion with nature, transcendence, karma and other such concepts that invokes out of this world type of experiences, are also unscientific concepts.
  6. Have you read Professor Lawrence Krauss' book, "A Universe from Nothing"? Briefly it describes the quantum foam, from whence our universe arose, (and possibly other universes) as "NOTHING" . It means of course redefining what we think of as nothing at all, but we have already done that sucessfully when a hundred or so years ago, we thought space was nothing. We know better now. And of course this quantum foam is far closer to the nothing at all we may ascribe to than anything else we can name.
  7. Correct of course. All supernatural, paranormal, and mythical overtones, re communion with nature, transcendence, karma and other such concepts that invokes out of this world type of experiences, are unscientific concepts. And of course the whole concept of this thread with regards to the title, remains irrational. Atheist= a person who does not believe in a creator/deity/ID/god Religion = The belief in a super duper omnipotent being/god, and the supernatural and the paranormal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion Rational = A belief based on reason, logic and evidence. https://www.google.com/search?q=rational+foundations+of+religion&rlz=1C1RXQR_en-GBAU952AU952&oq=rational&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j0i67i131i433j0i67j0i67i131i433j69i60l3.2928j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 "Rationalism holds that truth should be determined by reason and factual analysis, rather than faith, dogma, tradition or religious teaching"
  8. A star essentially is a balancing act between radiative pressure trying to expand the star, and gravity compressing it. These essentialy are determined by the nuclear fusion processes going on in the core of the star. Consequently, a star’s size is set by its own mass. Also (although I am less certain as a non physicist) the original first generation stars were much larger in volume, with consequently shorter life spans. These stars formed from the accretion of large areas of H and He with no metallic content. So I would also hazzard a guess and say the content of the cloud from whence the stars formed. Later generation of stars are smaller and obviously formed from clouds of dust and debris, that did have metallic content, that was synthesised from the original larger stars. I would wait though for some confirmation on that.
  9. The discoverer? A recent discovered frog species was named after David Attenborough.
  10. That goes without saying. My point though, the real danger is the irresponsible, ignorant dog owner.
  11. While I agree with that, and since I have "some" disgreement with most everyone so far that has contributed, (part of that disgreement is that I believe that sometimes PC can be taken too far) I think the crux of the argument is the opportunistic, publicity seeking, controversy creator that jumped at this, is imo someone truly to be despised. Although one must admit, he is good at achieving the discontent and controversy he purposely sets out to achieve. Jordon Peterson his his name. A shame also of the hypocrisy shown by one or two contributers in particular. Biden made a decision based on qualifications, in the first instance, and to show that justice must not only be done, but be seen to be done in the second instance. His pre-announcment simply aligned with those two points. IMVHO of course!!!
  12. https://phys.org/news/2022-04-diminishing-arctic-sea-ice-impacts.html Diminishing Arctic sea ice has lasting impacts on global climate: As the impacts of climate change are felt around the world, no area is experiencing more drastic changes than the northern polar region. Studies have shown the Arctic is warming at two to three times as fast as the rest of the planet, resulting in a rapid loss of its sea ice volume. That sea ice loss, declining at an average rate of about 13 percent per decade, is having a long-lasting climatic impact in the Arctic and beyond, according to a new study published this month in Nature Communications. The research team, led by University at Albany atmospheric scientist Aiguo Dai, analyzed observational data and climate model simulations to show how fluctuations in Arctic sea ice cover are able to amplify multi-decadal variations in surface temperatures not only in the Arctic, but also in the North Atlantic Ocean. more at link............................................... the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29810-7 Sea ice–air interactions amplify multidecadal variability in the North Atlantic and Arctic region: Abstract: Winter surface air temperature (Tas) over the Barents–Kara Seas (BKS) and other Arctic regions has experienced rapid warming since the late 1990s that has been linked to the concurring cooling over Eurasia, and these multidecadal trends are attributed partly to internal variability. However, how such variability is generated is unclear. Through analyses of observations and model simulations, we show that sea ice–air two-way interactions amplify multidecadal variability in sea-ice cover, sea surface temperatures (SST) and Tas from the North Atlantic to BKS, and the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) mainly through variations in surface fluxes. When sea ice is fixed in flux calculations, multidecadal variations are reduced substantially (by 20–50%) not only in Arctic Tas, but also in North Atlantic SST and AMOC. The results suggest that sea ice–air interactions are crucial for multidecadal climate variability in both the Arctic and North Atlantic, similar to air-sea interactions for tropical climate.
  13. Nonsense to the first statement highlighted, and from your link..... "A drop in the country's crime rate in part explains why the Netherlands' prisons are emptying. A 2016 government study on capacity also noted that a focus on sentencing, with both an increase in shorter sentences and examining how crimes impact society, have helped reduce the prison population, says Wiebe Alkema, spokesperson at the Ministry of Justice and Security. The Netherlands now has just 61 prisoners per 100,000 people in the general population, ranking among the lowest in Europe. In comparison, the United States has more than 10 times that figure (655 per 100,000), the highest in the world, according to data from the World Prison Brief, an online database hosted by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research at the University of London. The Dutch justice department predicts that by 2023, the total prison population will drop to just 9,810 people". :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Yep there doing OK compared to other societies and I congratulate them, even for a 2022 estimate population of 17,714,900. Still though the fact remains that even if they close all their prisons, does not mean that thieves, etc and other wrong doers do not exist. And their attitude towards social tolerence while to be commended mostly, is still controversial, particularly on drugs. Still, you need to remove your rose coloured glasses, as things are not as perfect as you want them to be......"The country has Europe's third-lowest incarceration rate, at 54.4 per 100,000 inhabitants. According to the justice ministry's WODC Research and Documentation Centre, the number of prison sentences imposed fell from 42,000 in 2008 to 31,000 in 2018 – along with a two-thirds drop in jail terms for young offenders." So quite good, but not perfect as I keep telling you. and of course......"Willem van Eijk (13 August 1941 – 19 June 2019) was a convicted Dutch serial killer known as "Het Beest van Harkstede" (The Beast of Harkstede). He was convicted twice for a total of five murders"https://www.google.com/search?q=the+netherlands+and+criminals&rlz=1C1RXQR_en-GBAU952AU952&oq=the+netherlands+and+criminals&aqs=chrome..69i57j33i160l2j33i22i29i30.9639j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8 Anyway thanks for highlighting exactly what I have been telling you. 😉 I don't believe that. You need to live by what you have posted dimreeper, or cease making statements that can be interpreted in many ways, similar to that ancient obscure book they call the bible. And I didn't say you did or had responded. I said......"You may ask the next obvious question, as to why. I cannot answer that one". 🙄 Sorry, I didn't know this was a history lesson, otherwise I would have named many more...Idi Amin of course is another. There have been and still are war mongers, and Putin is obviously one as well as a war criminal, as of course was Hitler. Are you casting some doubt on Hitler and what history tells us? I mean I remember this phyco nut on another forum, trying to convince the members that the holocaust didn't happen. 🤮 No, the law requires peaceable men and woman to do their duty in times of conflict. If they have a genuine conscientious objection to fighting, there is always other non combatant regions to do their duty.eg: paramedics/catering/ chaplins/ etc etc......"Non-combatant is a term of art in the law of war and international humanitarian law to refer to civilians who are not taking a direct part in hostilities;[1] persons, such as combat medics and military chaplains, who are members of the belligerent armed forces but are protected because of their specific duties (as currently described in Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, adopted in June 1977); combatants who are placed hors de combat; and neutral persons, such as peacekeepers, who are not involved in fighting for one of the belligerents involved in a war. This particular status was first recognized under the Geneva Conventions with the First Geneva Convention of 1864."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-combatant I didn't actually say that. I said words to the effect that war is/was wrong and evil, as are individual wrong doers and criminals in a society.
  14. Who said you had asked it? Is this a comprehension problem? I asked.... OK? Are you speaking for dimreeper? On the same language, you are probably correct. Unlike dimreeper and yourself, I'm not out canvassing or promoting some passive totally unworkable philosophy that we have discussed amply in at least two other threads. I equate all as undesirable but unevitable due to human nature. I certainly am not detracting from that, and I'm pretty certain the laws of civilisation you speak of, also push them as undesirable, including religion, and basic moral codes of reasonable westernised society. Which war mongers are you on about? Hitler?? there were about six attempts on his life, sadly all failed until he took the coward's way out. Putin? How can the west put him in jail? Or are you suggesting we risk a nuclear war, or even another conventional war? Draft dodgers...who are you referring to? I remember a movie starring Garry Cooper about an American bloke named Calvin York from memory, a passivist and anti war, but he upon being conscripted went anyway and obeyed the laws of the land. He ended up an American hero and won its top medals of valor. I suggest if you have a problem with your society (as it appears you do with any debate) then do something about it. I'm concerned about global warming, and I'm also doing at some initial outlay, things to reduce my carbon footprint. Action my friend is more imporatnt then words!!!
  15. I would add that the important rehabilitation factor, and alternatives such as suspended sentences, parole and such, are now being looked at much more critically at least where I am, due to the numbers of criminals on parole, bail, or suspended sentences, that have literally thrown it back into the faces of the authoriries, by reoffending, many in short spaces of time. These are the points I'm having great difficulty in getting dimreeper to accept. That would obviously mean accepting he was wrong. I'm not going to argue with your's and dimreeper's ideal heart warming desired society's, other then they are unworkable due to the fact that there is good and evil in all of every society, including American Indian, Australian indigenous people, any democratic western society, Russia, Ukraine. That is an indisputable fact that only a fool, drunk or sober, would deny. You may ask the next obvious question, as to why. I cannot answer that one. While you are correct on both counts, it certainly is not exclusive to both counts as dimreeper claiming. Firstly again, my full statement was "Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't some of those American Indian tribes constantly fight each other? That was certainly the case with our indigenous Australians. Isn't that evil? or wrong? or have you got some philsophical exemption for that?" Without delving into any of your deeeeeep philsophical type thinking, the facts are war, crime and all actions against just, reasonable laws of the land are wrong...some more then others...some unforgivable, (as per war, Hitler and Putin) other's certainly forgivable, (but we can't forgive them if they are banished from society) if and when the wrong doer feels remorse and/or apologises for his/her actions and possibly makes recompense. But hey!! don't let that concern you too much. I'm only a simple old bastard, that trys to see things as they are, and as simple as possible, (punishment, protection of society, and rehabilitation if possible) and without any unneccesary philosphical complications. Occam's razor I think. 😉
  16. They are supposedly all professional sportswomen, and are paid to play to the best of their ability, just as the coach is paid to coach to the best of his/her ability. Professional sportswomen and men are paid to all train to the best of their ability. As far as Rugby goes, League or Union, you are either amateur or professsional, mens or womens. A big man or woman will use their size to advantage, just as a smaller, perhaps faster player can use his or her size and speed to advantage. Junior RL in Australia is played based on ages and graded according to those ages, despite the fact that you can have a big lumping 12 year old, playing against a smaller, slimmer 12 year old.
  17. DM was proposed to explain the apparent anomolous rotation of galaxies. DE was proposed to explain the acceleration in the expansion rate of the universe/space/time.
  18. Hence why Centrifigal and centrepedal forces are know as pseudo forces. I'm wrong of course! Only centrifigal forces are pseudo....centripedal forces are real.
  19. Not at all. It was just as relevant though. I really don't care what word you chose to use. You claiming that there was nothing but good and perfection in any American Indian tribe, is nonsense. There is good and bad in any society. Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't some of those American Indian tribes constantly fight each other? That was certainly the case with our indigenous Australians. Isn't that evil? or wrong? or have you got some philsophical exemption for that? Whether they banish all the criminals and bad people, does not detract from the fact that there is good and bad in any and every society. And again having no jails does not mean no criminals or bad people. In essesnce you seem to be saying...perhaps if we banish all the criminals and wrong-doers in our society to an isolated landmass or Island, never to be seen or heard from again, with no chance of rehabilitation. So this is what you are suggesting dimreeper? No, not necessarily and certainly not exclusively. And we certainly have a greater range of criminals then just thieves. But yes, we have jails because we have thieves and other criminals to punish them, protect society and hopefully show them the error of their ways. Alternatively and obviously, having no jails does not mean we have no thieves. Think about it. How does punishing/banishing criminals and wrong doers, and whether we have jails or not and the necessity of them, equate to solemnly remembering our war dead, and all those that have given up their lives so that you can live in peace and security and practise your philsophical preference? Your whole questionable philosophy only stands if everything is arse up...you know, like sympathy for the criminal instead of the victim. We have prisons and jails as I have told you in a couple of other threads, to rightly punish them for their misdeamenor, to protect society from their evil, and possibly to rehabilitate them. No culture or society benefits from evil criminals and wrong doers. One can be thankfull thankfully, that such philsophy as you seem to be pushing at every opportunity is in the minority.
  20. In my previous posts re taking this war criminal out, I always preferred it be done by one of his confidants, close assoccciates or a normal Joe Blow Russian citizen.
  21. Any win against Germany cannot ever have been seen as immoral.
  22. A new genetic study involving more than 2,000 dogs and 200,000 survey answers from dog owners has revealed that a dog's breed is a poor predictor of behavior on its own. The first-of-its-kind, peer-reviewed study—conducted by professors, students and researchers at University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School—is set to appear this month in the journal Science. The major findings go against the popular beliefs that breed plays a role in how aggressive, obedient or affectionate a dog can be. Those stereotypes can prompt breed-specific legislation, insurance restrictions and home bans for some dog breeds, including pit bulls and German Shepherds. more at link..................... :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: I could have told them that. Having been the owner of a Labrador, German Shepard, two Rottweilers, and now two miniature Dachsunds, and never once having anything that even looked like a problem with any of those dogs at least. Yes, a person to own any large dog breed, or any breed for that matter, should have to undergo a phycological test methinks.
  23. https://phys.org/news/2022-04-blueprint-life-asteroids.html Using new analyses, scientists have just found the last two of the five informational units of DNA and RNA that had yet to be discovered in samples from meteorites. While it is unlikely that DNA could be formed in a meteorite, this discovery demonstrates that these genetic parts are available for delivery and could have contributed to the development of the instructional molecules on early Earth. The discovery, by an international team with NASA researchers, gives more evidence that chemical reactions in asteroids can make some of life's ingredients, which could have been delivered to ancient Earth by meteorite impacts or perhaps the infall of dust. All DNA and RNA, which contains the instructions to build and operate every living being on Earth, contains five informational components, called nucleobases. Until now, scientists scouring extraterrestrial samples had only found three of the five. However, a recent analysis by a team of scientists led by Associate Professor Yasuhiro Oba of Hokkaido University, Hokkaido, Japan, identified the final two nucleobases that have eluded scientists. more at link................... the paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-29612-x Identifying the wide diversity of extraterrestrial purine and pyrimidine nucleobases in carbonaceous meteorites: Abstract The lack of pyrimidine diversity in meteorites remains a mystery since prebiotic chemical models and laboratory experiments have predicted that these compounds can also be produced from chemical precursors found in meteorites. Here we report the detection of nucleobases in three carbonaceous meteorites using state-of-the-art analytical techniques optimized for small-scale quantification of nucleobases down to the range of parts per trillion (ppt). In addition to previously detected purine nucleobases in meteorites such as guanine and adenine, we identify various pyrimidine nucleobases such as cytosine, uracil, and thymine, and their structural isomers such as isocytosine, imidazole-4-carboxylic acid, and 6-methyluracil, respectively. Given the similarity in the molecular distribution of pyrimidines in meteorites and those in photon-processed interstellar ice analogues, some of these derivatives could have been generated by photochemical reactions prevailing in the interstellar medium and later incorporated into asteroids during solar system formation. This study demonstrates that a diversity of meteoritic nucleobases could serve as building blocks of DNA and RNA on the early Earth
  24. While Johnny Ray was popular in Australia, and did at least one tour here, that particular song never made it. My Sister certainly had a crush on him, as did most teenagers at that time in the early fifities.
  25. While that maybe morally correct, perhaps as in the torture thread, it could be seen as the lesser of two evils. How many attempts were mad on Hitler's life? How many possible lives may have been changed if one of them was successful?
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