The Science of Watchmen thread has bloated up abominably, and the topics have wandered far afield. It is now closed, but you can talk about whatever right here, instead.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I have no idea what this thread is about anymore…
@ Josh – Duh! Bacon and lesbians! Haven’t you been paying attention? ;)
I wanted 1000 to return to where we started.
But you knew that… ;)
I have no idea what you are talking about ;P But if you bring the bacon I’ll bring the lesbians :D
Re: #998
I have no evidence one way or another: I’ve not followed any previous threads that have included Alan C. I hope he is enough of a gentleman and a Christian to return here. Having promised us more, I hope the power of Psa 15:1 & 4 is strong enough to give him cause to consider. Lying for Jesus is not a New Testament principle.
I think he’ll be back and I’ll be very disappointed if he is not.
Bacon!!!! Om nom nom nom nom nom nom…
That is, as they say, a deal.
#996’Tis Himself asked:
“Can Alan B see Offa’s Dike from his chimney top?”
I don’t think so – Clee Hill is in the way.
Lesbians!! Omnomnomnomnomnomnomnom :D
with bacon and brew!
Offa spent all that time and effort building his dike and you won’t even look at it from your chimney top. No wonder Britannia no longer rules the waves.
#1010
I don’t particularly want to rule Wales either.
I thought the US Navy rules the waves at the moment – except for the Western Indian Ocean!
Longest comment threads ever on Pharyngula:
[note: where threads were closed and another opened explicitly to continue the closed thread, I combine the original and spillover thread-counts]
Titanoboa! 912 (closed)
I get email (7/26/08) 1003 (still open)
I get email—special cracker edition! 1452 (still open)
The Great Desecration 2353 (single thread! closed)
EXPELLED! 2031
Expelled! open thread 351
total 2381
Priorities 1480
Fresh thread 969
total 2449
Frackin Cracker 1007
Fresh Crackers 1519
total 2526
current count:
Science of Watchmen 1381
I have no idea 1011
current total 2392
Third place, with a bullet!
They’ve already got a prince to do that nasty job.
See, that’s what happens when you ignore Offa’s Dike. Do you think the Somalis have forgotten about Offa and his dike? Not them! Today the Western Indian Ocean, tomorrow Glamorgan. And don’t whine that you weren’t warned.
Josh – sorry, this week started the onslaught of candidate interviews in my department from dawn to dusk, seriously encroaching on my internet time, and it’s not going to let up until May. I’ll try to catch up sometime this weekend!
Carlie, no worries. I understand completely. I’ve been finally getting back to some actual science that I’ve been neglecting in favor of reading papers on the Salem Limestone and such. But I definitely look forward to when we do catch up.
I would imagine that Alan C and RogerS have Easter things to do and income taxes (at least Alan C); here, I think this was discussed before but it’s the best surrogate I could find for RogerS or Alan C:
How god helped Noah by using Earth’s Magnetosphere.
And another cartoon
IMNSHO Jesus and Mo is one of the best web comics.
I just watched The Last Extinction on Nova the other evening. In light of this thread I was struck by several things. First and foremost was the dating of the megafauna extinction to a geologic instant ~12900 years ago. Scientists have been debating what killed off all the large land mammals for decades, trying to explain how this happened so quickly. Was it a comet, the introduction of humans (Clovis people) or a climate event (Young Dryas) that flipped the climate for a very short period of time?
Second the amount of debate this event has generated. I was relatively unaware of the the size of these animal populations at the time of the mass extinction. I think the common perception is that they just died out gradually, possibly caused by the introduction of a super predator or disease that spared bear, elk, moose and smaller mammals. Given the size of the populations, it seems improbable that humans of that time could be the cause of the extinction.
The persistence of the scientists of various disciplines in tracking down the nanodiamonds in the Greenland ice and their visible emotion at discovering the diamonds was very compelling and demonstrated the predictive power of science.
And that brings me to why following this thread has been a true privilege. If the scientists can track an event like “The Last Extinction” to a very specific time in Earth’s history and have so many varied disciplines come together over the tiniest evidence, then it seems to me very improbable that these same scientists could miss an even more catastrophic extinction event ~9000 years later.
James Dobson: “We’ve lost the culture wars”. Happy Easter!
Hey John Morales, Are you out there?
It’s been raining all morning, lazy day, so one more for Easter.
Easter, Eddie Izzard and the egg-laying rabbit.
Today will be the last day I will post also, not because of the type/key, It’s just that my personal life will become quite hectic very shortly.
OK John Morales and others lets put the record books to the test and bloat this comment string to hell and back.
While I think most EETers believe that EET(expanding earth theory) can remove all (PT) Plate tectonics actions, I do not. Both systems play a part in earths development. It would be ludicrous to assume that accretion of the protoplanet stopped after the big pieces were collected(space material to far out to accreat to the sun or other planetary bodies). On the early earth it would have been impossible to form water since it was too hot and there was no shielding to protect it from the solar winds.For water to form on a stand alone planetary body such as earth, a core must be capable in creating a magnetosphere. Once that has evolved only then can water be collected.
So the questions are at what point did the earth turn on?
In our continuing quest for truth, I think we will find that the electrodynamics plays a much bigger role in planetary evolvement than most would suspect.
While it is true that religion will disagree, so too has some science tried to deny the(Samuel Warren Carey) theory.
As his model was in a state of development when PT was accepted, I feel (S.W.C.)like Copernicus, Einstein and many others were coerced and shouted down because the main populace being religious at that time. PT was more adaptable to religion than EET.
Among the eight solar system planets, Earth contained sufficient material to fire up a magnetosphere that is conducive to the formation of an ionosphere close enough to the surface to enable atmospheric conditions that allow the continuing particle precipitation for the continuing formation of mass on the surface and interior of earth.
Again the main questions before us are:
At what point in time did the magnetosphere fire up?
Does the early and midlife expulsions from the sun vary?
Were the particulates of differing compositions,quantities and luminosities as the sun goes thru its life cycle?
Granted the water all come from the sun in one form or the other (some as spacerocky *buckets* burning up in an atmosphere)
Both water delivery systems are feasible. Earth merciless bombarded by rock and iron containing water and the slow yet continues particle precipitation. Its not a matter of which theory is right…Hell there both right.
As mass is accumulated more surface area is created and thus more lithosphere area created and the core is also gaining from lepton accumulation. Leptons have mass, there are few if any subatomic particles that are mass-less.
There are more satellites needed on the differential boundary area where earths mass is competent in attracting mass from the sun to earth and fly by particles which continue on there journey.
Plate Tectonics ultimately corresponds to the collections of mass thru many many earth functions…rotation, heat expulsion,energy accumulation,retention and expulsion cycles, etc
As soil or particles are laid down on this planet they aline with the magnetic properties of the time, I’m sure Josh and others know this quite well.
You must remember we live on a mass controlled by mass.
Disturbance of any of the sphere will produce change.
Example:Look up the pan evaporation rate when the sky was clear after 911.
The accumulations of Leptons in the core are not all derived from the poles.
As you sit there reading this you are surrounded by a couple hundred volts delivered by the sun and processed by the spheres.There is no difference of potential until you add distance.The delivery is a blue sky or clear sky feature.
The core is respondent to several inputs.
How much land use can be degraded in respect to energy accumulation?
There are certain natural laws that come into play, {one being every action takes place where it is the easiest unless forced}.
Examples:
Water runs down hill.
Deer walk the easier path.
Electricity takes the path of least resistance.
The big question is how are we changing the particle precipitation?
The other question lies with how long does the planet have before the balance of water and solids is 80/20…90/10 or until earth becomes a water world and will the magnetic field may become so homogenized that it no longer can create a sufficient shield to the solar winds? I doubt Eons.
Are we trapping water at a higher rate than before mans influence? Is it significant?
What is the ratio of subatomic particles delivered from the sun?
Enough for now.
P.S. and no I’m not buying a boat.*I have a canoe*
And while my minutes for posting are ticking away there’s something else that comes to mind.
We need religion for the simple fact that it has a binding effect on mankind that allows us to slowly focus on the answers without mass hysteria.
Of course today’s doom and gloom sandwich board carrying types do not add to the knowledge base, they do allow some to accept an easier worldview to operate within.
Lets face it, not all people on the planet have the time to fully understand the solarsystemview.To many they just don’t care because it’s not immediately relevant in there daily lives, others can’t even imagine, while others, many others sit on the fence and wait.While even others struggle to make religion comply with science so that perhaps an equal balance my ensue without too much upheaval.
Keep in mind I speak not of a God, only the tools of religion and science.
Religion has helped mankind giving him/her the time to acquire science.
Religion is not a perfect tool, it has many flaws, well duh look who wrote it *humans*. Religions have been evolving right along the way.
Our speedy scientific progress is directly proportional to our mass,our numbers, you know population.
Religion has not kept pace and the staunch atheist call bullshit.While this may in fact be true…there is no true test but death… and try to write a paper after that!
Sure the absurdly religious must be pounced, while the modern majority of religion offers a calmly homogenized atmosphere to raises a family and provide a safe atmosphere for the young mind to develop. At one point or another who hasn’t spoken to a God in this chaotic world of ours, (and if you haven’t then you have lead a truly sheltered life and you should check out the trenches with the rest of us folk). Early adolescence stops at some point and everyone should be allowed which tool will best serve his or her view. To teach religion outside of the institutions provided would not serve humanity well. The key is moderation.Everything in moderation,*except beer and bacon*.
Me? I’m a gun toting environmentalist. that does not mean I am a tree hugger or an aggressive sort, It means I am neither right-winged or left-winged, nor green, or libertarian, I am where the pendulum is perpendicular to our cores gravity (straight up and down)Mind you that this is not static.
We need religion as we need science, what we don’t need is the manipulations of religion by the short sightedness created by group monetary forces.These forces have also served us well, However by there very nature, lack a solarsystemview.Manipulating religion for political gain has always happened, it is a very dangerous game to play, thankfully these aggressions tend to be short lived.How do we change religion for today’s society, wars no longer are an option, it is thru education. IIRC the last words I read in Saint James Version was a threat to anyone that changes the words in the bible to the ultimate damnation.Prove that those words have been changed and you open a window to equalization and a workable platform for mankind.
Sphere Coupler
I really shouldn’t be dragging this up, from ages ago, but… some time back, Alan Clarke mentioned “Nova’s wiggly-looking jello forming into tadpoles”.
Now, I don’t know but this doesn’t sound like it was an evolution film, but more likely to be a biology film. Showing how frog eggs in water (which do indeed look like wiggly-looking jello) get fertilised and then develop into tadpoles.
The neat thing about that is that is a phenomenon that anyone can observe… and Alan Clarke calls it crap.
Reboho #1018
Impacts climate change and the like don’t account for the fact that the extinction event is much earlier than 12900 years in Australia, (and iirc Europe) where the extinction events do also coincide with the appearance of Homo sapiens. There had been plenty of climate changes before and no mass extinction events affecting the megaherbivores. Additionally mammoths may well have been a “keystone species”, maintaining the ecosystem and allowing other species to flourish- remove them and the rest of the community suffers, leaving it more vulnerable to factors that they would otherwise survive, like new predators, diseases, and climate change.
The impact theory is a nice idea, but I’d like to see more evidence- after all much bigger impacts have been recorded in geological time, and they don’t seem to be associated with similar extinction events.
Sphere Coupler:
I take it ‘impossible to form water’ is meant to be ‘water can condense’, because it takes a fair bit of heat to break down the water molecule.
Anyway, I find this scenario unlikely. I’d’ve thought the amount of insolation energy Earth receives would be only negligibly reduced were the magnetosphere absent – basically that proportion contributed by the charged particles it deflects. So I don’t buy that premise.
Nah, it’s an obsolescent method of social cohesion and control.
It’s helped humankind only inasmuch as it’s been a tool for social manipulation and control.
What the? If you meant ‘prayed’, then fervent wishing is not prayer. No, I’ve never spoken to a god.
No we don’t, and religion is manipulation, self-manipulation in many cases. Its only utility is the wishful faux metaphysical security blanket it provides to other beliefs.
Wars were never an option, and it’s not change but extreme etiolation we hope for. Education is a given, but more important is to encourage critical thinking.
Sorry, I have no idea what that means.
I don’t exactly understand what you have said here when you say>
“I’d’ve thought the amount of insolation energy Earth receives would be only negligibly reduced were the magnetosphere absent – basically that proportion contributed by the charged particles it deflects.”
I think I would respond to that; the magnetosphere acts as a focasing agent, a collector if you will.Long ago there was an Italion elevator man who was involved in the (starfish) project and his work (dangerously daring as it was)showed us the nature of the magnetosphere now known as Nickolas Christopilas effect,this lends in the understanding of the distribution of lepton mass.(I may have missed the mark)
“Nah, it’s an obsolescent method of social cohesion and control.”
Obsolutely for you and I, I would agree, but for everyone?
“It’s helped humankind only inasmuch as it’s been a tool for social manipulation and control.”
Yes of course.
“What the? If you meant ‘prayed’, then fervent wishing is not prayer. No, I’ve never spoken to a god.”
I mean just as your car creeps towards the precipece, or said goddamn it, doesent have to be a prayer, just an act in extreme trying times. Whether you truly believe or not it is a function that when there’s nothing else left serves to possibly at the most lend the mind hope and maybe let your mind find a way out.. whether false or not.Fervent wishing to whom? Open ended
“No we don’t, and religion is manipulation, self-manipulation in many cases. Its only utility is the wishful faux metaphysical security blanket it provides to other beliefs.”
I see it, that society is not quite ready to throw it away, and I agree it is that what you say.
Coundn’t agree with you more on etiology.
I’m just saying I don’t think the populace or the ones who control religion are ready for a diet of straight science.
Don’t even try to teach me blockquoting, I’m lucky if I can find the keyboard.
I meant absolutly for you and I
Whoops missed one
IIRC the last words I read in Saint James Version was a threat to anyone that changes the words in the bible to the ultimate damnation.Prove that those words have been changed and you open a window to equalization and a workable platform for mankind.
“Sorry, I have no idea what that means.”
I’m just saying that in the religions based on the belief that content of their scripture has not changed. They will die out for a more progressive religion as they have in the past and this is only relevant based on human history.
Sphere Coupler, quotation marks are fine for quoting.
Re:
That’s a common misperception, and an oft-quoted canard.
What about a diet of secularism? That doesn’t require straight science.
1. This is their claim, but clearly the belief that the content has not changed is independent to the interpretation of that content. The interpretation has surely changed, that’s historical.
2. Maybe eventually. Look at the timeline of religion. Historical inevitability is a hope, not a prediction.
That’s a common misperception, and an oft-quoted canard.
I didn’t mean that absolutly everyone resorts to this canard, It could mean some people scream momma or others could wish for that last bacon sandwich. If under such undo stress you or able to maintain a strong mind and face death with no thoughts but “so long it’s been good to know ya” then my congratulations to you, for you have a strong mind indeed.Its just to many its a peaceful out, in many ways I wish I could be religious, unfortunately I Know to much… but not quite enough.
As for secularism, Hell ya, oh hell yes!
“1. This is their claim, but clearly the belief that the content has not changed is independent to the interpretation of that content. The interpretation has surely changed, that’s historical.”
Indeed,as you say, however if their interpretation reached its end of fruitfulness,tweaking the words lends to differing interpretations and has also been done thruout history.
“2. Maybe eventually. Look at the timeline of religion. Historical inevitability is a hope, not a prediction.”
Sure evolving religions have been sporadic based upon continuity and science of the day(knowledge of the day),but really what else in are collective history leads away from this prediction?
I know I’m crossing post,pecking at my board of keys, hopefully not causing confusion,thanks for the links.
[pet peeve]
actually, what you meant was “absolutely, for you and me”
[/pet peeve]
Jadehawk
oh
And not only fail at blockquoting AND forgetting ” marks AND stepping on “[/pet peeve’s]”
Is it possible to have bacon withdrawels?
*looking for an out*
Of course outs aren’t easy to come by and reality sets in that I suck at grammer.
John Morales,
I see too your name continues to appear in black,(no key yet)will you be joining the short list of those who hope to continue, with sporadic lurking? If so…I’ll miss your words.
Dave Godfrey,
I don’t dispute any of what you said and I think that the Nova special did not really imply that they had the answer, it was more like a play-by-play of the investigation up to the time the show was produced. What was fascinating the back and forth. They left it at a comet impact in the ice sheet covering the northern section of North America, (Chicago under an ice sheet a mile deep) but as was stated throughout the show, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Perhaps I didn’t state it properly in my post, my point was that if the scientists could find evidence that minute, surely they could find evidence for a flood of Biblical proportions.
What do you make of the nanodiamonds found at the boundary?
P.Z. Thanks for allowing me to post here, I have enjoyed your post and look forward to many more…And if your book is too complicated for me, remember to add a little humour.
Biology with a grin, I could do that…Thanks again
Sphere Coupler
Sphere Coupler,
Strange how a recent study indicated that Those who believe in heaven are least likely to want to go there, eh? :)
So cheer up.
Yes. I have a typekey account, but don’t use it unless I need to.
Ah, yes. I see what you’re getting at now. :)
Really good sandpaper? Evidence for an impact, but I’d like to see more evidence. Everything’s either circumstantial or too easily interpreted by the other theories.
Alan Clarke still hasn’t made an appearance. As the old saying* goes: “A day without Alan Clarke is like a day without rutabagas.”
*About two minutes old.
Well, that was not how I had intended spending my day off, but reading the Titanoboa thread was all kinds of informative. I did have to mention this though because I think it was missed in debunking all Clarke’s other crap (not surprising there was a lot of crap):
From #354 over in that thread:
Clarke, not surprisingly, got this wrong too:
The Moon is receding. Which means at some point in the past it looked bigger than it does now, and at some point in the future it will look smaller. Meaning at some point in the future there will even be no more solar eclipses.
Never have I seen one person abuse, misunderstand, fail to comprehend and misuse so much science in one place in such a short space of time.
<>
Still no Clarke.
No surprise, he did get totally routed, didn’t he. Did he admit as much on the blog where he was bragging that he was coming her to beat us? If not, shall we go set them straight on the outcome?
Hi Jimmy, yes there are a lot of good people here and we have learned a lot.
Back later
Thank you kindly
Test – just signed in
Jimmy, are you sure? I thought we did manage to get that one.
*sigh*
Well, as you said, there was no shortage of stuff to address…
#825
A long time ago in a thread far, far away we had a discussion with Alan Clarke (aka Alan C). I summarised the position then as:
“We are waiting for Alan C to come back to us and fulfill his promise to demonstrate the explanatory power of flood geology and in particular to explain the geology of the Whitmore Point Member, famous for its amazing dinosaur trackways.
“Current Status:
We have tentatively concluded that flood geology is religion and only meets the level of a hunch (at best) when looked at as science.
“We are also testing out a hypothesis which explains the lack of a response as being due to lack of anything for flood geology to contribute and the desire of RogerS and Alan C to be kicked off for evangelising so they don’t have to reveal their hunch to be a crock.
“This hypothesis has the strength that it is capable of being falsified by Alan C fulfilling his promise and showing us how effective flood geology is and how it should be raised to the higher level of a hypothesis or even a theory to match or surplant the modern science of geology.
“I have waited 40 years to see how flood geology has moved on from its hesitant start with “The Genesis Flood”. I can wait another day.”
Nothing seems to have changed. We are still waiting for something from Alan C which will show us all the explanatory and predictive power of flood geology.
Alan C was 40% (or was it 60%) through an explanation for josh but thought he might have to delay things because of getting his tax sorted out by 15th April. Today is the 14th. Presumably its in the post by now. S0, perhaps tomorrow, Alan?
15th here – why did Alan C leave his taxes so late?
That is very naughty is it not?
I mean, he should be being very careful about “rendering unto caesar” shouldn’t he?
I hope he had time to do his bowing at the altar as well – or god will be very upset!
So – what else do we need to know about geology? My book *will* be on the way in a bit – we had a bit of a delay as the bank decided it had given me all the money it was going to this month, so I will have to wait for payday, so I will need something more to occupy me for the next couple of weeks – any offers :D
Or maybe do we have any wood/ship experts who could tell us why the ark is an utterly ridiculous design for a boat and would sink like a stone? (sedimentary or igneous ;) )
Maybe I should look into why the humans would have had problems surviving for 150 days- hmmmmm. I would think they would definitely have been rather sick – I know I would!
Hi Abs42
Not sure why you had trouble with the Figures for Chapter 24, GCR. You should have got into a page with the front covers of all the volumes (some greyed out because they haven’t been put on the web, others not used):
http://www.thegcr.org.uk/ImageBank.cfm
Click on “view all” for Volume 24 – Permian and Triassic Red Beds and the Penarth Group of Great Britain
You will then have well over 100 thumbnails of all the Figures for Volume 24.
The set for chapter 1 is an introduction. The text of Chapter 1 is available pdf 3.4 Mb at:
http://www.jncc.gov.uk/pdf/V24Chap1.pdf
Chapter 2 is sites for Permian rocks. (None in your area)
Figure 3.1 gives sites for Triassic rocks, including (17) Nottingham Castle; (18) Styrrup Quarry; (19) Scrooby Top Quarry in your area.
Note: this is not a list of all the places with triassic rocks – it is the top few that have been chosen as being of special importance and worthy of being conserved.
If you are still interested, if you have got this far I’ll tell you how to go to the next stage.
For anyone new, there is a series of (expensive) Volumes discussing the most important geological sites worthy of conservation in Great Britain. For example:
Volume 19 is Silurian
Volume 24 is Permo-Triassic red beds (“New Red Sandstone”)
By suitable changes to the URLs any of the Chapters 1 can be pulled up as pdfs and any of the Figures for the remaining Chapters can be found.
This is off topic, but I figured I’d share it. I don’t really know why–mostly because it pissed me off.
This person that I work with just sent me a photograph of a dead mouse in a puddle. The fur is all wet and matted down and part of the skin on the face has been pulled back from the premaxilla and maxilla et al., exposing them. She took the picture with her cell phone during lunch and sent it to me, because she found it so goddamn funny… Seriously. She was laughing her ass off as she emailed it to me.
She’s now pissed at me because she can’t for the life of her understand why I didn’t find it funny. Perhaps I just spend too much time surrounded by death, but I don’t really find the death of anything amusing.
Her last email, just a few minutes ago:
The kicker? She’s a pretty devout Christian. In fact, we had a conversation about a week ago where she was expressing wonder at where my morals come from if not from God. Riiiight. Because she’s the moral one.
I wonder if her Jewish carpenter would have laughed at that photo…
I haven’t forgotten that I put you off talking about weathering. Life just got hectic the last couple of days.
Many people wait until the last minute to do their taxes because they’re afraid they’ll owe the gummint money. Personally, I file my taxes in early February after I get all the paperwork I need, but other people can have different ideas.
#1051 Josh:
I don’t find it amusing either. That’s just repulsive and sad.
I really can’t understand why some people seem to find pleasure in animal suffering or death. Yeah, it’s just a mouse, but still… I can’t help feeling some kind of empathy for it. I could understand if she was indifferent to it, but her reaction is just weird (to me). But what do I know? After all, my morals don´t come from God so they must be all wrong! Right?
PS: Thanks for the geology! I’ve always liked it but you and Alan B got me even more interested :) Thanks for that.
Yeah…agreed. I always find death a little sad*, regardless of the organism. Some of my friends find that weird, but whatever. I think it’s unavoidable with a deep time perspective. Life is so fleeting and you’re dead for such a long time.
Personally, I think anyone who doesn’t find that a little sad to be the weird one. Maybe I’ve just seen too many things die and seen too many dead things, who knows? And yes, like you seem to, I find it amusing whenever I appear to have more appreciation for one of “god’s creatures” than someone who worships the being that they believe created it.
Happy to help create obsession whenever possible :)
*And I think that anyone who takes pleasure in something else’s suffering is just simply repugnant.
#1054, #809
Glad you enjoyed it. But you have been warned!
One of the great things for me is the explanatory power of geology. I look at a beautiful scene and as well as appreciating the beauty I know WHY it looks that way. I understand the processes behind it.
If flood geology had the same ability to explain and then to make predictions which work I would be fascinated but I am still waiting …
Re the dead mouse.
I could imagine many different reactions depending on the circumstances. Anything from:
A dead doormouse (a pretty and quite rare species in the UK) – sadness.
A diseased housemouse – glad there’s one less to spread disease.
A rat – even more so!
ROTFLMAO funny would not come to mind! Pain, suffering and death is a part of the natural world but I cannot see why I should take pleasure and humour in it. Even the Bible that, presumably, she reads and believes in talks about the whole world groaning and suffering.
“I wonder if her Jewish carpenter would have laughed at that photo…”
I cannot possibly think why He would! The Jewish carpenter said that God knows when a single sparrow falls. It does not say that the event is a cause for great mirth.
I am not suggesting you ask her but I think it is more up to her to explain her odd reaction rather than you. Her reaction has nothing to do with the Jewish carpenter.
Thanks guys – got to go to work so no time to reply now – will later.
re dead mouse – that is just sick and sad :(
Poor little thing.
When my boys make fun of inappropriate things I always call them out on it – maybe her parents didn’t?
Oh, it’s too late for warnings. I’m already addicted. Yes, I do collect rocks. Don’t ask me why but I’ve been doing it since I was a child. Now I even classify them. So it isn’t your fault :)
Exactly. That’s why I love science in general so much. There is so much to know about our world! And the beautiful things we see can be even more beautiful when we understand them.
To me one of the most fascinating things about geology is the geologic time scale. I get chills when I try to imagine the time that passed before I was born… it’s such a long time. I feel tiny and insignificant but that makes me value my life even more. It’s sad that people like Alan C and RogerS will never understand what I mean by long time…
So, then you understand that feeling–that feeling you get when you split a slab of shale along a bedding plane and realize that this is the first light to fall on that fish fossil since the carcass got covered over with lake silt. That feeling that you’re seeing the first light to fall on that fish in maybe 216 million years. Yeah, there really isn’t much that compares with that. And for me, at least, it never gets old.
A kindred! Someone else who gets it.
*** Pops In ***
So, Alan Clarke still submitted his reply to Josh?
***Pops Out***
Oops, that’s of course suppose to be :
So, Alan Clarke still hasn’t submitted his reply to Josh?
***Repops out***
Wait…you didn’t pop back in before correcting that typo. How did you do that and can you teach me?
Alas the monks made me swear an oath not to reveal the secret.
***Repops out***
Son-of-a-Bitch
Some years ago I was on top of a cliff looking out at the ocean. It was a warm spring day, a few fluffy cumulus clouds in the sky, and a beautiful view. There were several people there and one woman said: “Look at that marvelous blue sky. What makes it such a gorgeous blue.”
Unfortunately for her, I decided to answer. “Let me explain Rayleigh Scattering to you.” I then took a minute or two discussing wave lengths of light compared to the size of air and water molecules.
One man complained: “Knowing that has robbed all the joy of the scene from me.”
I told him that was ignorant nonsense. Knowing why the sky is blue enhanced the beauty for me. I then said: “But why the sky is blue is trivial compared to why the night sky is black. But I will not explain Olbers’ Paradox, even though it tells us several important things about the universe.”
fffft
I have never understood this view. To me, it’s beautiful regardless of knowing how it works – but knowing how it works is satisfying on a different level. Just because we can explain away love through naturalistic process, it doesn’t make the feeling any less significant.
Re: #1066
Never met Olbers Paradox. Thank you. Amazing what we are picking up on this thread.
If only Alan C could add his explanation of flood geology …
When I first saw the Grand Canyon, I felt this epic tectonic shift within my mind as a thousand things that I knew about geology (in the abstract) met and meshed with the geology right in front of me. The canyon is a mile deep physically, but it’s hundreds of millions of years deep temporally, and that’s a whole other kind of vertigo.
Ignorance means missing out on the best bits.
I guess I’ve already spent enough words on what I think about that (at least tangentially) kind of attitude:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/03/the_heathen_are_raging_again.php#comment-1501035
Exactly.
Vis per Scientiam
That was the cleanest discussion of Olbers’ Paradox that I’ve read. Thanks. It did raise a question, though. I can hunt for an answer, but perhaps you know: why does the idea trace back to Kepler in 1610? I’m gonna expose the raw flank of my ignorance here, but was Kepler actually postulating that the universe contained an infinite number of stars? I wasn’t aware of that. Is that what they’re referring to? When I think 1610 and Kepler I think of his reply to Galileo but that’s it. Then again, astronomy is a long way from what I do.
If you knew all the biological processes that goes on in a flower a rose would still smell as sweet.
There is a Lower Jurassic marly limestone formation near my home where I use to go. When I was younger I knew little about it. It was just a pleasurable place to go hiking and look at the lovely landscape. Now it’s much more than that. Now I know that those rocks I’m holding in my hand were formed when dinosaurs were still around. I understand how they came into existence. Occasionally, I find an ammonite fossil and that gets me thinking about how long that fossil had been there untouched and about the environment that ammonite lived in. And it gives me that feeling of awe I can barely describe (Josh did a very good job here, btw). It simply is more interesting to me now.
Some people have no idea of what they are missing by not even trying to understand nature.
(And I have no idea what this thread is about anymore…)
Apparently Kepler considered Olbers’ paradox a couple of hundred years before Olbers did (in 1826) but didn’t come to any conclusion.
Weird. I’m gonna have to poke around that a bit.
Yeah. One of the things that, I guess I would say, “got me” early on about the whole “sitting there untouched” aspect of time, was a historical geology class I took in college.
In one lecture Mark, my professor, was talking about deep time and just randomly went off about people and their profound misunderstanding of the subject. He started ranting about how people always talk about the “Age of Dinosaurs” as if these critters all lived together at essentially the same time. Everyone knows that T. rex has been extinct for 65 million years. Five year old kids know this. Fine. Then he throws his hands up in the air and yells “But what about Coelophysis? Do you know about Coelophysis? Of course not! No one knows about Coelophysis. It was a small theropod that lived during the Late Triassic. A bit unsung. You know how long it’s been dead? It’s been extinct for twice as long as T. rex!”
That statement just blew my mind. I hadn’t really ever thought about the length of the Mesozoic before that. I had certainly never processed just how much earlier on the scene the Late Triassic dinosaurs were as compared to those in the Late Cretaceous. They were just words. It was another of those “pulling the rock off the fossil” moments.
But the really great thing about it? Mark was wrong. He understated the point. T. rex has been extinct for ~65 million years. Coelophysis has been extinct for, roughly, ~215 million years. These two dinosaur genera lived ~150 million years apart. Coelophysis has been gone more than three times as long as T. rex has been gone. Wow…
Anyway, sorry. Another rambling rock comment. I need to sleep.
Josh,
No, it wasn’t rambling. There is something about “time” that throws many people for a loop. When the Hottentots were discovered, their number system was, supposedly, 1, 2…many. If this story is true, one supposes they could have developed higher abstract mathematical abilities, but they didn’t. I sometimes wonder if, on average, strict dogmatic Christians and other religious people are a bit like this.
I know people who get all tingly at the thought of living in heaven forever. To me it’s horrifying to think of being stuck in a city—even if it’s paved with gold—for an absolute infinity of time. I sometimes think that people have a hard time understanding evolution because they haven’t the capacity to comprehend sizeable chunks of time passing. They can’t factor this into the equation and extrapolate the obvious consequences. You explain evolution to them—the number of small incremental changes increasing over time—and it’s like 100 years, 200 years . . . many.
Is it a problem of limited imagination? I think it is for many people. It’s all too often a genuine failure of comprehension. Obviously, religion dumbs people down—purposely and systematically—but in the larger picture, is this deficiency more nurture or nature?
Another random thought that came with discussion of the end of the dinosaurs is that, of course, the dinosaurs did not die out at the K/T boundary 65 Ma. They continued to live and became the new top predators for a while.
The birds. There was an article in the New Scientist (not my favourite magazine) entitled “The Demon Duck of Doom!”
From http://www.sci.uidaho.edu/bionet/biol116/O6/presentations/T8_tertiary_period_overview_slide_notes.pdf
“For example, a flightless bird called [Gastronis, formerly known as]
Diatryma, widespread during the early Tertiary, stood over 2 meters tall
and weighed up to 100 kilograms (220 pounds).
This enormous bird, widespread in Europe and the Americas,
was the dominant terrestrial predator in South America until
about 25 mya. It is thought that this bird may have preyed
upon horses and other small mammals of the time.”
A bit like a Velociraptor with feathers (except they almost certainly had feathers …)
Actually, this is an example where Wiki is helpful because it summarises a lot of information and gives references to the literature:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastornis
Gives a whole new meaning to the duck hunting season!
[As far as I can see, the predator theory has won over the much more boring idea that Gastornis just ate big nuts like a modern parrot. But “Demon Duck of Doom” sounds much better!]
Coelophysis was around at the initial breakup of Pangea. Tyrannosaurus rex and the break between North America/Greenland from Eurasia were simultaneous. Here’s some maps.
So now that PZ re-enabled anonymous commenting, should we expect Alan C and/or RogerS to come back? At least now they don’t have that excuse. And Alan doesn’t have the taxes excuse anymore. Maybe he’s still working on a response to Josh?
I doubt it. He knows he has nothing. But Alan, if you’re reading this, please feel free to prove me wrong. Prove to us that you were not lying when you said:
We are all waiting Alan…
*shakes head*
They always run off to fight for Jesus elsewhere right after assuring us that they’re finally going to answer the questions.
Guys, this doesn’t look particularly good for the side that runs around constantly asserting that they are the ones holding the moral high ground. Just sayin’…
Yeah I know. They probably aren’t even reading this thread anymore.
You were mean to them because you tried to teach them things! You bombarded them with (Shock! Horror!) science and knowledge and evidence… and we all know where that leads: EVILUTIONISM!!!1!! They had to RUUUUNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!
*looks around*
*notes that it’s now five days after tax day…*
Maybe he’s writing a long essay as to why my philosophy is wrong…
Yes, that must be it.
I have faith that it’s the case so it must be so. faith works right?
Does anyone know if Alan C is posting elsewhere, possibly under a different name? Or has this been a thread too far?
I think I know what the problem is. We all misunderstood Alan Clarke. He is preparing for his taxes which are due April 15, 2010. Now for you and I adding, subtracting, and multiplying may be fairly trivial tasks, but Alan Clarke is a creationist. He is uncomfortable with numbers larger than 6,000.
If he figures out how to use his calculator (AKA, God’s magic number box) by July then maybe, just maybe, he’ll have time to finish his response to Josh.
Good job he’s not a chemist then. We deal in Avogadro’s Number – the number of atoms/molecules in a mole of material (e.g. 12 g of carbon) = 6.022 * 10^23.
And don’t talk about large primes. Not sure if he’s onto Google yet there’s the googolplex (which sounds a bit like it). The largest number ever used in a serious mathematical proof is Graham’s Number but he’ll know all about this – it’s on Wiki!
Come on, you can’t accuse someone like Alan Clarke to be at the “one two three many” stage of math. I’m sure he can count up to 21 if he unzips his trousers.
Yet another image from ‘Tis that I didn’t need…. ;)
#1091
As the koala said: Oh dear!
*pops up*
*looks around for Alan*
*looks around for Roger*
*looks at the date*
*shakes head*
In other news, I had occasion to do some reading on the chalk deposits at Eastham today. Cool stuff.
*takes a sip of single malt*
Incidentally, my post #1091 shows that I was grew up in the American Midwest. Most English speakers would have written “can count to 21.” Midwesterners like to throw unnecessary prepositions into their sentences, as I did when I wrote “can count up to 21.”
That’s interesting. There must be some Midwest/East Coast convergence (shock!), because I have that affliction as well.
Must be the dialect. I’ve never lived farther than 60 miles from 4 of the 5 Great Lakes. But I swear the dialect near Lake Superior was half Canadian… What der hey!
Stop rubbing it in, I’m stuck at work for the next 7 hours…
Crap.
*takes a drink in Kel’s honor*
I’ll be home in 7.5 hours, then I’ll go for a jog and rehydrate myself with some Makers Mark. Throw on some Left 4 Dead or Team Fortress 2 and game away drunk.
I’m really looking forward to getting home.
Sounds like a good beginning to the weekend.
I hate, hate, hate the use of “game” as a verb.
As Bill Watterson put it so well: “Verbing weirds language.”
#1094
Slainte Mhath!
Mine’s an Islay – Bowmore, Laphroaig or Lagavulin, depending how I feel.
#1094 Josh said:
“I had occasion to do some reading on the chalk deposits at Eastham today. Cool stuff.”
Eastham – in USA, UK?
Can you give us a reference?
UK. That chalk…
I’ll hit you with some refs on Monday. I’m packing my gear right now; heading off to do some Army shit.
I’ll see ya on the other side.
Someone needs to poke this thread between the eyes with a sharp stick and then smash it on a rock.
Since Alan Clarke and RogerS have vanished into the bandwidth, PZ could close this thread and put it out of its misery.
I have a bottle of Bowmore 12 Year Old Enigma. It’s an excellent single malt. My favorite single malt (that I have) is Glengoyne 17 Year Old. It’s unpeated, which gives it a noticeably different flavor from Islays, Speysides and northern Highlands whiskys.
Sorry for the incredibly late reply, here. I was unable to get to a computer for the uninterrupted length of time necessary to cope with this titan(oboa)ic thread until recently, and it took most of last night to get caught up. It was great to see the geological exposition, though.
Alan B @#556:
I suspect that it was originally a hunch, when the ancient Mesopotamian/Mediterranean peoples first came up with and transmitted the story, quite possibly as an ancient memory of a local flood.
And following up on what I wrote in Titanoboa! comment #578, the hunch may have been reinforced by the discovery by those peoples of megafaunal bone beds and single giant fossils, quite possibly in (local) flood sediments and deposits. Adrienne Mayor mentions a famous collection of black bones in a temple to the god Set in Egypt, which contributed to the conceptualization of the god. The fact that bone beds were recognizably sedimentary may have led to the (incorrect) inference that the same flood killed all of the animals whose bones they were at the same time, especially when combined with ancient stories of local great floods.
Now, though, the global flood is nothing but religious dogma.
Feynmaniac @#608:
Actually, following the textual analysis offered by Friedman, we can find good support for the Dtr1 and Dtr2 parts as being authored by Jeremiah, and the redactor as being Ezra. I don’t see individual names to attach to J, E, and P, but given that Yahweh was the god of the tribe of Judah, we can say that J was written by a priest (or priests) of Judah; given that Elohim was the god of the collected tribes of Israel, we can say that E, with its pro-Moses, anti-Aaron bias was written by a Mushite priest (or priests) of Israel. Given that P was anti-Moses, it was probably written by an Aaronid priest (or priests) (and parts may have been written by Ezra), and while the laws most likely ancient, the pro-Aaron stories were likely meant as a rebuttal to JE.
And so on.
Speaking of textual analysis, I am pretty sure that the later “RogerS” comments here were in fact written by Alan Clarke. RogerS always struck me as being a simple man of simple faith who commented occasionally; AlanC is more voluble, more complex, more knowledgeable, more manipulative, more dishonest, and more malevolent. I see AlanC’s hand strongly in the comments about Nietzsche @#910 and “coprophagia” @# 922 — there are earlier examples where AlanC has implied or stated outright that people suffering and dying slowly are because God tortures people to death, and of course, AlanC has confessed outright to enjoying degradation.
By their fruits ye shall know them.
Of course, I might be wrong. I might also be wrong that AlanC and RogerS were ever two separate people.
Well, I guess we can assume that Alan C has been arrested for tax evasion and may be gone for some time :D
I am still patiently waiting for payday to get that book Alan B recommended – Roll on Wednesday!
*Abs has a virtual drink with you all but it is only midday here, so it will have to be a pretend one!*
#1109
If you want to follow up different whiskys then this (huge) site gives some tasteing notes for Bowmore whiskys (and others if you play around a bit). The _EN ensures you are in the English language (assume this is at least close to American).
http://www.whisky-distilleries.info/Bottles/Bowmore_EN.shtml
(I just wish I could afford most of them!
I know the feeling.
Thank you for the link. I’ve bookmarked it.
Now, now, I’m sure it’s all a misunderstanding. Alan, his accountant, and his lawyer will have everything sorted out quickly enough, especially after Alan explains that there are people in the blogosphere waiting for him to bring us the good news about the Lord and the flood.
#1100
Hi Owlmirror
The question about flood geology was to try to focus the mind of Alan C on what he should be doing on this thread if he wanted to be taken seriously i.e. that for it to be considered anything more than a hunch or religion HE had to come up with evidence and explanations. Josh and some others of us have been trying to keep Alan C’s feet up to the fire. RogerS tried to palm me off with “The Genesis Flood” published nearly 50 years ago which was what put me off flood geology in the first place as a teenager!
Unfortunately, it would appear that Alan C has NO evidence and he is a man who does not keep his word (which, again, is something that should concern him if he really believes himself to be a Christian). I honestly would like to have seen what he had. Has flood geology really not moved on over 50 years? (O.K. I believe I know the answer to that).
Alan C still has the opportunity to establish himself in the eyes of this section of the scientific community if he follows up but the longer his silence continues, the more convincing are the conclusions this thread has been tracking.
I am pleased PZ did not close it down early. The longer it runs, the stronger the conclusion that Alan C and RogerS (or RAolgaenrCS) are charlatans.
But they can still prove me wrong …
#1111
Hi Abs42 In case the book (presumably the GA Guide??) is too advanced it would be worth having a look before shelling out from your hard-earned cash. Public library ref. section, college or university library??
Did you have any joy with the GCR site? Again, probably too advanced if you have little background but it does set the scene in a proper scientific way.
Can you get out on a field trip led by someone with local knowledge?
http://www.ukrigs.org.uk/html/esos.php
gives about 10 sites where field trips have been prepared for Key Stage 2, 3 and 4 schools. Nothing for your local area but there are a number of sites that you might find interesting if you really have to do your own thing.
*pops in*
*looks around for AlanC*
*mutters something about AlanC being a coward and a liar*
Yeah… because if God sends me to hell for not believing in the Flood* I’m going to blame AlanC. After all, he said he had evidence for the flood and he promised to show it to us… And we’re all still here waiting for him and willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads us, but Alan went away. It’s almost as if he had nothing to show…
*indisputable proof of His infinite forgivingness.
*draggs tired, cranky, sunburnt self back into the thread*
*drops body armor on the floor and adjusts ballcap*
*glares around for any sign of AlanC or Roger*
Still nothing, eh? Color me unsurprised.
…
…
…
You know what? Fuck this. I’ve got a long delayed conversation with another YEC to get back to over on Dispatches. At least that guy answers questions.
Peace.
*pops smoke*
#1119
Good morning world!
Dispatches? – Link??
#1118
Abs 42 comes from the English East Mdilands. Her local rock is the Nottingham Castle Formation.
“The Triassic strata of the UK include
some world-class examples of braided fluvial
sequences (e.g. … Nottingham Castle … formation[s]).”
from:
http://www.jncc.gov.uk/pdf/V24Chap1.pdf
(Which will give you a lot of introductory background on the Permo-Triassic of Britain.)
I do not know the particular local morphology that interests her but I suspect that it may have to do with the effect of hard pebbles on the overall weathering resistance. (I could be quite wrong …)
So… has this thread broken the record yet?
science of watchman=1381
I have no idea=1022
current total=2403
correction I have no idea=(1122)
current total=2503
I don’t really care whether it has broken any record, but that’s only my view …
Record would still be the Expelled from Expelled thread with 2000+ posts.
I think Alan Clarke and his lovely assistant, RogerS, don’t love us any more.
<snivel>
I wonder if comment 1111 is on to something. But then, maybe Alan Clarke came back while registration was necessary, didn’t bother to register, and didn’t get the idea of ever looking at the main page to find that registration has been switched off again.
* The nanodiamonds have been put into question.
* I wouldn’t necessarily sad at the sight of a very dead mouse, and I certainly wouldn’t be glad. Probably I wouldn’t find it disgusting either. But funny? It’s beyond me why that would make anyone laugh. Is there anything funny about an average pebble? About a fern leaf?
I don’t get that. Am I supposed to randomly switch the topic to something completely different, like me? I’m just as impressed as you by the fact that the Cretaceous took longer than the entire time that has passed since its end, but where does the value of my life or the color of Superman’s cape or the film “The Loop on Stalin’s Beard” come into the picture??? ~:-|
That particular one probably isn’t; they’re cattle herders, and cattle herders want to count their cattle. However, there are plenty of languages spoken by hunter-gatherer cultures whose number systems stop at 2.
Your point stands, though: Any idiot can learn to read and write; yet, 500 years ago, almost nobody worldwide had learned it, and most of the world was inhabited by people who had never encountered the very idea of writing. Any idiot can learn to read and write in an alphabet; yet, the alphabet was invented once. There’s lots of stuff we’re all capable of but have never dreamed of doing.
As was posted here on Pharyngula when it was published, Velociraptor had feathers, period. We know because it had quill knobs on the ulna. Not just feathers – wing feathers!!!
On the other hand, the latest word is that Gastornis and all other giant flightless birds except the phorusrhacoids were herbivorous. Imagine Gastornis or (the original Demon Duck of Doom) Bullockornis viciously ripping out the heart of a… palm tree.
BUUUUUULL-SHIIIIIIT!!!
Gastornis is not Phorusrhacidae, nor is it a member thereof, and that “25 Ma ago” figure they pulled out of their asses. Gastornis never came to South America because Panama didn’t exist yet. MOOOOO-ROOOOONS!!!
================================
And now for the biggie.
See, that’s why it’s not possible to do science without math.
Yes, accretion does continue, but at a totally ridiculous rate. After the Late Heavy Bombardment, which ended some 3.8 Ga ago, it’s simply negligible.
What do you mean by “form water”?
Every liquid (outer) core automatically creates a magnetic field and thus a magnetosphere. That’s not something special. To have and maintain a liquid outer core for a reasonably long time, all a planet needs to do is to be big enough.
As soon as the core formed. Automatically. Inevitably.
Not quite, young padawan.
:-)
Science is not a quest for truth. It’s a quest for falsehood. It’s a quest for everything that’s false and for showing why it’s false. That’s because science cannot prove, only disprove; if you have an alternative method for getting knowledge, tell us…
What???
Which is happening at a negligible rate at the surface, and not at all in the interior, see below.
What do you mean?
What particulates? And what’s the luminosity of a particulate???
Erm… no. No water whatsoever comes from the sun. As usual, I don’t understand what you’re even talking about. It’s all so bizarre!
And you don’t know what a lepton is, do you.
Complete list of leptons:
electron, mu, tau, electron neutrino, mu neutrino, tau neutrino.
The first three have a negative charge. It is thus impossible to accumulate them alone. It’s also impossible for them to penetrate the crust or mantle. Further, mu and tau are unstable; they decay into electrons and other stuff.
Neutrinos have very, very, very, very little mass. They can penetrate both crust and mantle… for the same reason why it’s impossible to accumulate them: they don’t interact with other matter (including each other) except by gravity (which, as mentioned, has an extremely weak effect on them) and by the weak nuclear force (which is so weak it’s completely negligible at distances above 10-18 cm; that’s much less than the diameter of an atomic nucleus… try to remember the ratio between the diameter of an atom and that of its nucleus…). They don’t “see” matter. So they shoot right through. Trillions of neutrinos are shooting through you every second, at almost the speed of light.
So, no matter how you dreamt up “lepton accumulation”, there is no such thing.
No, you just need to read up on solar wind… :-)
What are you talking about? Please explain.
But they aren’t at non-negligible rates. And solar wind is something different entirely.
If they contain iron or other magnetic stuff, yes.
Show me.
Please explain what you mean by “processed” and “spheres”.
What?
No, electricity takes all possible paths from once pole to the other at once. It’s just that most electrons take the path of least resistance.
The exact same holds for water: it takes all paths that lead downhill without ever leading uphill in between. It just so happens that usually there isn’t more than one.
How could we possibly?
Where are you taking the idea from that the Earth accretes water faster than cosmic dust???
If by “homogenized” you simply mean “weakened” (random word substitution or what???), then what about two billion years?
How could that possibly happen?
The ratio of subatomic particles delivered from the sun to what?
Really, it’s very tiring to read your stream of reduced consciousness full of terminology you made up on the spot. What are you on, and can I get it legally in the Netherlands?
BTW, when I’m in a dangerous situation, I don’t suddenly become religious. That would be changing the topic. I don’t get the idea. I’m too distracted by, you see, the dangerous situation…
All possible paths from one pole to the other at once, obviously.
The important point is the analogy: water is pulled by gravity, and electrons are pulled by positive and pushed by negative poles ( = places that have too few respectively too many electrons to make up for the positive charges of their nuclei).
Actually, Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel has a thumbnail history of scripts/writing systems (broader term than “alphabet”), and he notes that they were initially independently invented at least twice (Sumerian cuneiform and Mesoamerican characters), and possibly four times (the questionable two (in terms of independent invention) being Egyptian hieroglyphics and Chinese characters).
Alphabets and syllabaries came later, and were, apparently, invented in imitation of the above earlier writing systems.
There is a certain degree of uncertainty about how much a given culture was influenced by neighbors and/or earlier cultures, so there might have been more independent invention of writing than currently thought. See also Linear A, proto-Elamite, the Indus (Harappan) script, et cetera.
/nit
No, no, no. Sorry, I obviously didn’t make that point well. It’s not about me; that’s not where I was going. I was focusing on the “feeling insignificant” part and how that makes me appreciate the world more, not my life. I should have written more. Brevity never seems to be my forte. :/
I think we’re on the same page.
David Marjanović, OM | April 30, 2009 7:30 PM
Just because you haven’t heard of the terminology I use, and because your ultimate source of knowledge (wiki) does not address, does not mean that these are my definitions.
I would venture to say that you have no concept of sphere coupling.
I don’t have the time to address your questions at the moment, tho I will at a later date.
I will in turn ask you if you are a creationist, and do you think the earth was formed with water on it or did it just magically appear?
Do you have a goddidit worldview? If you do I will be wasting my time.
poke then smash
OK, Before I leave I really have to ask you David, are you aware of the ion expulsion from the sun?
Do you really think that we as humans can function outside the suns influence without an artificial field,
Do you realise that our bodies relie on the properties of the electron to operate?
David the following was meant to be sarcastic, tho there is truth to it…
The other question lies with how long does the planet have before the balance of water and solids is 80/20…90/10 or until earth becomes a water world and will the magnetic field may become so homogenized that it no longer can create a sufficient shield to the solar winds? I doubt Eons.
P.S. and no I’m not buying a boat.*I have a canoe*
That’s not what I meant. It certainly is not about focusing on me. When I said that feeling* “makes me value my life even more” I meant that it makes me value the fact that I’m alive in a time when I can not only contemplate the world, but also understand it (to a certain degree, of course). So it’s not about valuing my life in itself, but more about valuing the fact that I can appreciate the world more (and for that I need to be alive).
Now that’s just how I feel. You don’t have to get it. I just wanted to clarify because I think I expressed myself poorly. Sorry.
*of insignificance. It’s because my life is insignificant that the few decades I’m alive and conscious are important to me.
Yes – that’s why I specifically said “alphabet”. Writing was invented more often.
Well, my point was that I don’t feel insignificant when pondering Deep Time. I don’t feel at all. :-)
LOL.
Of course not, and neither does anyone else except you. So explain that term already!!!
WTF. Again: What are you smoking, and can I get it legally in the Netherlands?
Some water was probably part of the initial accretion, but most probably came during the various Heavy Bombardments from beyond what is now the Asteroid Belt.
Yes. Are you aware it almost entirely consists of hydrogen ions? Practically no oxygen to go with it.
Without an artificial what field? I don’t understand what you mean.
No, there’s no truth to it as far as I know: the Earth doesn’t accrete water faster than (silicate) dust.
(I did get the sarcasm in the PS.)
Oh yeah. I’ve never had the feeling of being born in the wrong century. Now we’re on the same page :-)
And that’s because you’re a heartless fucking automaton, of course…
*ducks*
I have no idea why this thread is about anymore.
*smacks Sven*
David Marjanović, OM | April 30, 2009 7:30 PM
just like any other language it is limited in its expressive value and you should be able to translate math data to an English(or spoken language) that your grandmother can understand, if you can’t then you do not fully understand what you are trying to explain!
Hi Everybody! still at it, I see.
The above is bullshit. Calling mathematics a language is just an analogy, and, frankly, not a very good one. Natural languages like English evolved to serve the communicative needs of their speakers in terms that are relevant to the ordinary conditions of everyday life as it’s lived by certain kinds of animals with certain kinds of nervous systems on the surface of a certain kind of planet.
Mathematics could be viewed as a tool specifically for the purpose of overcoming these limitations of language, with the consequence that there are mathematical concepts that cannot be expressed in any natural language. Otherwise, maths would just be a kind of shorthand, and nowhere near the revolutionarily useful tool it is in the sciences.
CJO | May 1, 2009 4:23 PM
Name one term, symbol or function that does not have a definition or explanation.
now where is my sharp pokey stick and smashing rock
Name one term, symbol or function that does not have a definition or explanation.
You’ve got my point backwards.
Explain Quantum Electrodynamics to your grandmother without using math.
When did you add ZOMBIE, I must have missed that and I’m sure there’s a story to be told…
Whoaaah I just looked at the official King Harvest myspace page and they only have 1199 friends. That isn’t right. (Yeah yeah I know, myspace ha aha ha myspace ha blah blah blah. Well, facebook stinks even worse, so there.)
CJO | May 1, 2009 4:54 PM
Well my grandma taught me QED…just kidding.
It can be done, each term has a defination.
But of course it would be counterproductive.
here
It won’t last
I would say that David has an excellent concept that sphere coupling is a subspecies of bullshit.
Does sphere coupling require the use of run-on sentences?
heh heh heh
You mean I missed the funeral? (I mean baptism).
Baptism in what type of alcohol?, no industrial swill for ZRBDC right?
*burp*
*pops another top*
‘Tis Himself | May 1, 2009 5:20 PM
“Does sphere coupling require the use of run-on sentences?”
“Tis” what? What? You don’t like my grammer…?
You want math? Got your math right here! Straight from the Journal of Geoclimactic Studies! Klein, Gupta, Cooper, Jansson (2007)!!!
Using the data on benthic bacterial populations produced by Parker (2003) and Parker and Birch (2005), we calculated the mean mass of bacteria per square metre of continental shelf between 61°S and 67°N (the primary zones of bacterial activity). Using the Bonner Index of oceanographic dimension (Katsu, 1986) we were then able to employ the LOYDENT4M three-dimensional modelling equation to produce a global estimate of benthic eubacterial mass. This is defined as:
Q³uct + 3Ψ = XFº x Δjy {(∑y,ct79 + θtq-1)- λjc +2}
Δ³-¾Φ²,Ω13b
Where Q is raw mass, u is area, c is osmotic conductivity, Ψ is the vertical (neo-Falkian) benthic discontinuity, X is concretised diachronic invariance (P-series), F is trans-dimensional flow structure and jy is the non-rectilineal harmonic regressivity of the constant Δ.
The control run was defined as:
Q³uct, jyΦ = ∑cy³11
using the relative standard error:
∑Ψ λΔ23=θ2c
This gives an outing variable of less than the value of θ14Ω, which is corrected by the antedenoidal deterministic yield factor j.
The CGM values are located between 0 and 2.25% to account for inter-annual variability of the asynchronistic (counterbifurcated) non-tardigrade log run.
Palaeodata were drawn from Tibbold (1996) and Tibbold and Rawsthorne (1998), using the living bacterial mass : fossil ratio developed by Hering et al (1977) and refined by Xang (2000), then fed into the same LOYDENT4M three-dimensional modelling equation, using control run:
Q²uct, yΦ³= ∑cy³42
Quantified preparations of Polybacter spp were then cultivated in laboratory conditions at a constant temperature of 6°C and a constant pressure of 41 atmospheres and an oxygen content of 2.3% to simulate averaged conditions in the benthic environment (Ragnsdottir 2003). The carbon dioxide released was collected in a Willetts inverter and passed through a zinc-loaded demi-osmotic membrane before being subject to the standard Smithian analysis using the C33 marker.
Carbon dioxide production from the Polybacter sample was calculated as:
4δ161 x Λ³Жญ5,6,1,8Φ-4 = {(ΣΨ²Њyt3 – 14๖P9) x 49}
2β x ⅜kxgt -§
Where δ is bacterial mass, Λ is substrate volume,ญ is the square root of the constant Ψ and Њyt is the polychromatic “coffeeground” Schumann factor for semi-particulate distribution.
The relative standard error was:
δ²Φ – 3hrtЊ
All analyses were conducted with P software.
‘Tis Himself | May 1, 2009 5:20 PM
“I would say that David has an excellent concept that sphere coupling is a subspecies of bullshit.”
aahh Tis, That hurts, where’s your faith.
Mark my words(drunk as they may be)Sphere Coupling will rule the fate of us all.
Hell I might make it a religion, Thats it, church of the coupling spheres…donations upon entry.
Sphere Coupler | May 1, 2009 4:03 PM
First off mathematics is a useful language used to describe the properties of an entity and just like any other language it is limited in its expressive value and you should be able to translate math data to an English(or spoken language) that your grandmother can understand, if you can’t then you do not fully understand what you are trying to explain!
I have no idea what this thread is about anymore | May 1, 2009 5:34 PM
“Where Q is raw mass, u is area, c is osmotic conductivity, Ψ is the vertical (neo-Falkian) benthic discontinuity, X is concretised diachronic invariance (P-series), F is trans-dimensional flow structure and jy is the non-rectilineal harmonic regressivity of the constant Δ.”
I never said you could preform math with the spoken language only what I said above,each piece including the software can be broken down to it’s elemental properties
I never said it was easy or logical to do so.
Fool, your sphere coupling is no match for time cube!
Your spelling sucks too. It’s spelled grammar.
each piece including the software can be broken down to it’s elemental properties
I don’t think even you know what that means. The question is, can “each piece” be precisely expressed in a natural language? If so, and that appears to be what you are maintaining, then why can’t you “perform math with spoken language”?
Us economists can use mathematics as well. Here’s a bit lifted from an on-line tutorial:
POKE, SMASH, CLEAN, EAT
Feynmaniac | May 1, 2009 6:15 PM
Wow, I don’t think I could contort my mind to even begin to worship that stuff called “time cube”.
Do they hand out cold libations at the alter like my religion?
Am I wrong to use spelling (not typing–spelling) as an index of intelligence? Not of character, of intelligence. I mean, some of my best friends can’t spell for shit, but they are also not my smartest friends.
CJO | May 1, 2009 6:31 PM
“perform math with spoken language”?
I don’t think it would be easy or logical to do so.
(I bet my Grammy could, she was incredible).
*OK now I’ve past the point of driving myself*
*pops open another* aaahhhhhh
Hamthrax
Sven DiMilo | May 1, 2009 6:58 PM
People used to measure the cranium to determine intelligence, and ankles to relate the size of ones…
I guess big ankles would be bad or If one had small hands…
Virginia, country, or commercial? Guess I’ll just have to get the sampler plate…
And what goes better with it, beer or bourbon?
There is so much knowledge in any one discipline that relates to other disciplines and yet the acceptance of interdisiplinary progress is slow to develop.
Sure their has been some progress but the level of informed ignorance is still quite high and as I’m sure ya-all would agree that knowledge is slow to show up in textbooks.
I haven’t a fucking clue what this thread is about anymore.
nor why
New Michele Bachmann blooper…
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2009/05/bachmann_teh_stoopid_spinning.php
When Sphere gets involve the comprehension of a thread goes downhill in an hurry. He’s the common denominator.
When spheres couple, they become dumbbells.
Sphere coupling? I use it every time I hook up my horse trailer!
Seriously, though, there are a lot of actual scientists on these threads, and most of the rest are at least science-literate. If you actually want to introduce some interesting insight from a real scientific discipline, you really ought to be able to come up with a better, clearer explanation of it. Hint: the skillful use of plain language will help your credibility far more than the clumsy use of specialized jargon.
Bob Weir cannot sing.
That is all.
Did you see the Dead tonight, Sven?
I think Weir CAN sing, but chooses not to, which makes it all the more frustrating.
it’s not just that he can’t sing it’s that he has chosen to remove all memory of the words for every song from his brain.
I downloaded the GSO show when i got home from it and i can confirm this.
Oh by the way, how much does Warren sound like brent?
FYI for anyone with Sirius or XM. They are broadcasting the Show tomorrow night from Philly on the Dead Channel.
Is Warren Haynes with this version?
This is an amazing world…I am listening to the first set from tonight’s show in Philadelphia (streaming on gdradio.net before the setbreak was over in real time).
I saw the shows at Nassau Coliseum and Madison Square Garden. Not much of a tour, but at these prices…
Warren Haynes is the perfect fusion of Garcia, Pig, and Brent…it’s amazing.
Yeah. And he’s kicking all kinds of ass. Seriously when I went I had some old school flashback. Not in the sense that it was exactly the same and he replaced jerry, but that the musicianship was there and the energy was out of the park.
holy shit
gdradio.net
I’m on it
We had the Garden bouncing up and down during Gimme Shelter. That was an amazing show by any standards. I’m so happy that these guys are stepping up. It means a lot to a lot of good people.
Sven what player are you using? WMP is crapping out on the stream
nm the embedded one works.
I heard a Ratdog concert mp3 a few months ago. The lead player “does” Garcia. Cool, yet sorta creepy.
…and if it seems like I’m using the word “amazing” a lot, it’s because I done got amazed.
Even with bobby mangling the lyrics that is how i felt after the show.
I mean i don’t care about the lot scene any longer, but it was a damn near replica from what i remember in GSO 89 and 91.
And the band was pretty tight considering, well mostly.
gdradio.net “streaming server cannot accept any more connections at this time”
Yeah, there are several people making a living as Garcia-style guitar players. You heard Mark Karan with Weir’s band; another guy is Steve Kimock, and Jimmy Herring has pinch-hit on many occasions. Warren Haynes too. There’s nothing wrong with playing partly in the style of your influences…look at jazz, there’s one Coltrane, one Miles, one Sonny Rollins, one Bird, one Clifford Brown and then there are a bunch of guys who sound a lot like them. In fifteen years there will be a bunch of people that sound a lot like Warren Haynes. And so it goes.
embedded player won’t work on the Mac here… iTunes jammed up on server connections… sigh.
Herring played here last night. And as a long time Panic head I’ve seen him a fair amount in the last few years (plus his time with Col. Bruce) and Kimock played here last week. I missed that unfortunately. Well not that unfortunately I was home with the new dog but I would have liked to see him.
I heard the show was awesome.
Sven have you seen or heard any of the Allman Bro’s shows from MSG?
Unreal. So many guest musicians over 15 nights. High quality stuff.
Kseniya
I’d refresh. I bet it opens up
I remember hearing about those Allman’s shows.
WMP is working fine for me, and Friend of the Devil sounds very nice.
oooooo gimme that apostrophe back…
So Rev, gdradio has been streaming the last few shows. The first set starts during the real-time setbreak and then they’ll play the second set at midnight or so.
“There’s nothing wrong with playing partly in the style of your influences”
I totally agree, but what Mark Karan (?) does in Ratdog goes way beyond simply wearing his influences on his sleeve. He DOES Garcia. It’s kind of odd because it’s SO similar. There’s nothing particularly wrong with that, either – it’s part of the sound – heck, it’s part of the culture of which the sound is a part – and it’s nice to hear that distinctive “voice” again on recent recordings. It’s understandable for someone doing Dead tunes with key members of the Dead to want to evoke Garcia. It’s like being faithful to the material, and Garcia’s guitar voice is essential. Sticking close to what Jerry is like being genre-aware when playing country, or metal, or what not – Jerry’s style is almost a genre unto itself.
I wonder what does Karan sound like when he’s not doing Jerry? He’s really good, I bet he can do all kinds of things.
nice. I’ll be tuning in.
how do you think they are accomplishing this?
First set tape/hard drive run out to the car and using a wireless card to stream? Or from inside the show?
Or is this a sanctioned thing?
It’s definitely an audience recording.
Playin’
Have you seen Dark Star Orchestra?
(i-tunes stream works now!)
Yay!
I’m guessing we’ll get second set starting sometime around 11:45 est
No, Rev, I know nothing about Dark Star Orchestra, but I did notice that they are playing The Gathering of the Vibes in Bridgeport, CT at the end of July.
Rev, what I’ve pieced together is that there’s a guy inside who goes by “taperrob” who’s getting an audience recording (he’s also posting setlist updates and photos on the Philzone board), and then somehow sending it out to the gdradio people to stream.
I remember when you’d get those xeroxed fliers in the parking lot that had the last few weeks’ setlists…tapes if you were lucky and knew people in a matter of months. Now it’s hours from the old Spectrum to my earphones. What next?
Sven it’s pretty crazy. I mean they’ve got to be sending it from inside I would think?
K.
DSO is like the worlds best Dead cover band. That sounds cheesy, and to some extent it is, but they take a show and play it somewhat note for note.
They sound, act play just like the boys. It’s both awesome and creepy at the same time.
WELL worth catching though. You’ll have a great time.
I don’t know, but it will be interesting to find out.
that’s right
So I could “see” the Dead via the DSO?
I never saw them. I was only 11 when Garcia died. My parents are/were fans. I grew up with Garcia and Dead music. We have a Garcia and Grissman children’s music CD… LOL. My dad wanted to take me to a Dead show when I was 10 but my mom wouldn’t let him. LOL. They were both clean and sober by ’94 so it would have been cool. I wish I’d gone, now.
What’s next? From the Spectrum right to you EYES and EARS… then it’ll be VR wired right into your brain, full sensory experience a la Strange Days… LoL
There are pretty-good-to-excellent Dead cover bands in every city in the US; I have my local favorite (Long Island’s Half Step; check ’em out). All of them have a lead guitar player who plays just like Jerry, and a few of those guys have made it to the national scene. I have never seen DSO but they take it to an exreme, recreating exact shows, not just the setlist but played in the style the Dead were playing in that month of that year.
Yeah in some fashion yes. They pick a show, say Cornell 5/8/77 and play the whole show essentially as close to note for note as they can.
Even with Donna screeching.
It’s pretty impressive
I guess I’m just going to have break out the vinyl-to-mp3 device and archive “Pigeon Park” by Congress of Wonders from the album “Revolting” circa 1970 so I can link to it for this gang.
“I remember once we played Lovelight for eight hours, but Big Brother never showed up.”
“Yeah. Phshew. Are you going to sit down, or are you just going to hover over that bench all day?”
“Oh, I thought I had sat down. Phshew.”
Wow. The note-for-note concerts are like… like doing Gershwin or something. Doing the composition that emerged on some given night. Amazing. Weird, but cool.
I read something recently about a Swedish (?) band that does old Genesis shows, note-for-note WITH all the elaborate staging and costumes that Peter Gabriel and the band used to do.
Is that Haynes singing “China Doll”? OMG… very much like Jerry. Neat!
Just in case anyone doesn’t know about the internet music archive it has tons of streaming and downloadable dead and most any other band that allows live taping.
Great site.
Three-way conversation on the internet can be like a braid.
No K, this is a show from 83 taking up time while they are getting us tonight’s 2nd set.
Still neat though!
especially if there is a bottle of makers involved with one of the strands.
No, K…the set’s over and this is the real Jerry from 83.
Hey, want to meet at the Vibes fest in Bridgeport? We could get SC and maybe Bill Dauphin to come too…
Hell you could get MA Jeff maybe
I’m drinking my old standby, Sierra Nevada Pale.
And finishing up the greener supplies laid in for the Dead weekend.
ahem
Oh that really is Jerry? Ohhhhh… well that is a relief, actually… ;-)
I’m pretending it’s LIVE and I’m receiving broadcasts from the deep dark past… hey this show is older than I am, so why not? :D
Nice Sierra is my standby as well.
Though, sweetwater IPA is closing in fast. But I’m friends with the owner of that brewery so I feel I have to.
I’m not much of a green gardener… Um… always more on the other path of weirdness.
I’ve got no problem with that. I’ve actually been at a show and though it was from the deep dark past.
Definitely like a braid. Like a three-way game of leap-frog, with each person pulling a strand of the braid. Sorta of. ;-)
The Vibes is tempting, but pretty expensive for me right now, and I’m very likely going to be elsewhere that weekend, upstate New York, camping at another music thing (for free, basically).
I do think Bill D lives around there, CT somewhere.
I am very boring. I am drinking lime seltzer. :-)
Well THAT was surreal (kids chanting the praises of gdradio).
Geez, I haven’t done the “pharyngula late-night chatroom thing” since sometime last year with Icthyic and MAJeff…
@1161, Sven wrote:
Seriously?
Yes, you’re probably wrong, at least as a blanket rule, although there is a correlation between the ability to spell and IQ.
Although I’m an avid reader and published writer, I am not a good speller, never have been, yet I have several reasons to believe I’m pretty intelligent.
I used to think that maybe the ability to spell was just a talent I don’t possess, just as I don’t have the ability to carry a tune.
But not long ago, I asked a neuropsychologist about my spelling problem, and he told me that when someone of high ability (high IQ) spells poorly, he’d suspect a type of dyslexia.
Sven they going to come back with the second set?
Actually, now that I check the date, I’m hoping to be at another “music thing” that wekend too…the Floyd Fest in Virginia. Camping out w/ daughter and brother and his family.
raincheck?
Sven, did you get caught up on all of the work you were avoiding, or are you back in procrastinating mode?
Whatever the reason, I’m glad you’re back.
bastion, thanks for setting me straight…you’re probably right. You spelled everything right, by the way. I come from a long line of pedants: my mother sez that when she sent letters home from college, her mother (a no-bullshit teacher of English and Latin) would send them back corrected in red.
Rev, yes, they’ll stream the second set at some point. I do not know when exactly.
I have a friend who is a) dyslexic, and b) a linguist. He’s very bright, but a terrible speller. Ok, that’s only one data point, but it lines up with Bastion’s.
I’m very tired… time to call it a night. Too bad, this is fun. I’ve still got gdradio going. My eyes are burning, though. Time to sleep. Night Sven, Rev. xxoo
just takin a Friday night off…
Oy! I guess I should check in on weeks-old 1200-comment threads more often; who knew y’all were talking about me?
Is this the event you mean? I see a couple of you have concluded that you’re not available, but if anyone wants to get together there, I could probably be persuaded. I’m more in the center of the state, but for an old Texas boy, no two places in CT ever seem very far apart!
Damn I miss Brent
Night K!
Yes, Bill, that was it… a whim on my part. As indicated above, I will be here instead.
raincheck?
Sven wrote:
And I didn’t even use the spellchecker!
Thank goodness for spellcheckers. Although sometimes my spelling is so far off the mark that the spellchecker is completely befuddled, and I can’t find the darn word in the dictionary to find the correct spelling either.
And where better than here?
Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you’ve got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn’t you like to get away?
…
Be glad there’s one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name,
And they’re always glad you came;
You want to go where people know,
People are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows your name
Yeah, I’m here because I was too damn lazy to go to my local bar (where many do, in fact, know my–real–name).
Speaking of spellchecker fail, I was reading undergrad research grant applications today, and one kid expressed her desire to become a “conversational biologist.”
What the hell
Sven wrote:
Well now, that makes us feel special for sure!
I surmise that (s)he wrote “conversation” for “conservation,” the spellchecker made a suggestion, and (s)he [shudder] went with it.
*shrug* I’m sure we’re all special–each in our own way.
Maybe she liked to talk a lot?
gender-concealment fail
PZ,switch off the light in here…..:-)
We’ve got a bunch of them on this blog.
And bacon?
What Bastion wrote, except for that pesky last clause.
Conversational biology is an elective in the local community college’s Biology as a Second Language program.
Wow. This thread is the most active one on all of ScienceBlogs right now.
So what?
“Nobody understands quantum mechanics.”
— Richard Feynman
No, actually, I was just talking about quantifying. If you think an effect exists, but can’t even put an order of magnitude on it, you can’t derive any conclusions from it.
Oh, that‘s what you mean. Why on the planet did you shorten that to “sphere coupling”? “Sphere”, you see, is not a technical term at all*, so it’s no wonder I didn’t get which two entities whose names end in “-sphere” you were talking about…
* That’s what must have confused you.
That the magnetosphere and the ionosphere have an influence on each other is not at all surprising. But you seem not to have understood what this “coupling” is, and to have misinterpreted the title of that paper as implying that any two entities whose names happen to end in “-sphere” can be “coupled” in some mysterious way. If so, you were wrong.
Of knowledge of which ideas are wrong, and why.
While science cannot prove, it can disprove.
Hardly :-D
There is no faith.
That’s a contradiction in terms. Stop commenting, go to sleep, and come back when your hangover is over.
Probably. I know pretty good scientists who can’t spell in their native English. The English spelling system is just so fucked up that only hardcore nerds ever manage to learn it. Seriously, like in French, it actually helps if you’re not a native speaker!!!
In schoolbooks, yes. In university textbooks? Nope. In molecular biology textbooks stuff ends up the year the paper is published. It’s amazing.
You can actually stand carbonic acid?
No, no, no. The real lesson was “never wear a cape if you’re a superhero”.
Yes. Carbonic acid is my life. ;-)
David Marjanović, OM | May 2, 2009 9:52 AM
“That the magnetosphere and the ionosphere have an influence on each other is not at all surprising. But you seem not to have understood what this “coupling” is, and to have misinterpreted the title of that paper as implying that any two entities whose names happen to end in “-sphere” can be “coupled” in some mysterious way.”
I know it was short on explanation, as I do not communicate very well. And you are right that I am not insinuating that all words that end in sphere can couple, tho sphere coupling does take place to some degree at the sub-atomic level also.
The coupling is not restricted to the magneto and iono, it is a core to core action with the spheres in between.There is a master slave relationship between the sun and all planetary bodies in this system. As in all master slave relationships, the slave always tries to become equal to/ or join the master.
“That’s a contradiction in terms. Stop commenting, go to sleep, and come back when your hangover is over.”
I’m back but I feel like shit, looks like I missed some pokin,smashing and best of all some music.{I would have loved to have gone to that Floyd festival!)
DaveL | May 1, 2009 9:47 PM
“If you actually want to introduce some interesting insight from a real scientific discipline, you really ought to be able to come up with a better, clearer explanation of it. Hint: the skillful use of plain language will help your credibility far more than the clumsy use of specialized jargon.”
Sorry DaveL I’m not the best communicator,never have been and never will be, it’s just who I am…
Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 1, 2009 9:24 PM
“When Sphere gets involve the comprehension of a thread goes downhill in an hurry. He’s the common denominator.”
I know this is a poke, but your a pretty good judge of character as I always have looked for the common ground in all facets of life.
I gotta get coffee, and some bacon. I feel like shit. Oh and RBDC I’ve taken your advise, no more industrial pork for me, I’m buying at my local butcher shop where I have been buying my beef (don’t know why I didn’t do this before now)
Point of interest: I doubt it made it to national news, thousands of hogs burnt up at a hog confinement in the Midwest just recently. 4 buildings,2800 hogs per building, 2 were a total loss.
Sphere, every time you try to explain your idea my BS detector goes off big time. Something is off, but I’m not enough of a physicist, nor have enough free time, to figure it out.
In any case, the proper place to present your ideas is the peer reviewed scientific literature, not a biology blog. As a working scientist of 30+ years, I can tell you that is only place to get your ideas will be recognized as valid by the scientific community, and the only place for you to ensure that you get credit for them.
This makes no sense. The Earth or any other planet, asteroid, comet, and moon are not “trying” to do anything. It’s like saying a brick “tries” to become a wall.
As for the “master slave” relationship, the Sun has over 99% of the mass in the solar system (Jupiter has most of the rest). So what can the “slaves” do to become equal to “the master” (the Master from Manos: Hands of Fate*)? As for joining the master, in just seven or eight billion years, as part of its evolution, the Sun will expand to become a red giant. The Sun will engulf the Earth just before it reaches the peak of this expansion. So Mercury, Venus and Earth will all “join” the Sun. Mars and the other planets will remain aloof and remain in their orbits.
*Sorry, couldn’t resist.
Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 2, 2009 11:29 AM
Nerd, I know that my presentation triggers a BS detector but the info for this concept is vast as it encompasses all of the known disciplines and it is not easy for me to deliver my meaning because taken piece by piece it can be sidetracked (much like surfing on the web if one is not truly focused on his search).
I know that there are more appropriate avenues to deliver this concept(as I am a member of APS and others)However,Well let me explain it this way.
Take an elevator man’s trade for example, this person preforms electrical,plumbing,iron work, painting,carpentry,glazier,etc.
The reason the elevator man does all of these crafts or trades is safety and cohesion.
Now all the other trade would love to take there part for their own and sometimes try to do so, but the elevator trade is governed by the ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) and in some states is now under a licensing procedure.
I feel that this relates to the sciences as well,cosmologist don’t do geology ect. There is a profound link between disciplines that is highly relevant to our progress as humans on this planet at this time, and this interconnectivity has been addressed by panels and think tanks and such but it is not enough.
I feel a convergence of disciplines is needed to fully address the issues that confront our species, just as the elevator man address the need to link trades.
As for why I don’t publish one of the journals?
Because it will be hidden from the average Joe, who will not seek out or will not pay for knowledge.
why here? Because I have great respect for PZ and his forum, There are many brilliant people who post here and many more who read here.
As the topic of sphere coupling is a diverse concept and PZ’s community is also diverse. I feel at least there is a possibility that with my uncollected ramblings I may spark some interest in a concept that will effect all of us and indeed does effect all of us every day.
As for credit, well my income is not derived from information dissemination, sure some credit would be nice, yet I do not desire to be put upon a pedestal as such, I am somewhat humble and choose to remain so.I have done interviews and I am not comfortable in that arena.
I know my material, yet do to communication skills I suck at defending my point of view.
On a more personal note, my time is limited, and my health is not the best, after all I probably eat too much bacon
*if that’s possible*
David Marjanović, OM | April 30, 2009 7:30 PM
And you don’t know what a lepton is, do you.
Complete list of leptons:
electron, mu, tau, electron neutrino, mu neutrino, tau neutrino.
The first three have a negative charge. It is thus impossible to accumulate them alone. It’s also impossible for them to penetrate the crust or mantle. Further, mu and tau are unstable; they decay into electrons and other stuff.
“Neutrinos have very, very, very, very little mass. They can penetrate both crust and mantle… for the same reason why it’s impossible to accumulate them: they don’t interact with other matter (including each other) except by gravity (which, as mentioned, has an extremely weak effect on them) and by the weak nuclear force (which is so weak it’s completely negligible at distances above 10-18 cm; that’s much less than the diameter of an atomic nucleus…”
Sorry David I shouldn’t have called you a creationist, that was really low of me.
One form of lepton accumulation is ionized gas (plasma)
Electron plasma, muon plasma And I suspect the magnetic moment for the flavoured neutrinos will be discovered if we attain enough power at LHC.
Some might consider a battery or capacitor as accumulation, but this is just charge separations and storage.
On another note we are at war, tho it is not a conventional war(in most cases)it is a thought war.A war between the two tools of man. Science and religion.We have been at war for a long time, not only between individuals, sometimes within the individual him/her self. Religions main weapon is the concept of mass population. This has backfired, for the more people in the system the faster science grows.
The infiltration of religion into schools is a tactic that is counterproductive to our species.I don’t know if an equal balance can be obtained yet this forum goes a long way in countering the absurd and is of great need.
Really the only religion that I somewhat respect is the Amish for they at their strictest level are not hippocrates.
Sphere Coupler @1250
Actually, to be a plasma, the gas must be at least quasi-neutral, so, in solar plasmas, you are going to get nearly as many ions as electrons. The interaction of the solar wind with the Earths magnetic field is fascinating, and we are just starting to work out some of the structures that can form in the northern lights, but I don’t see how you can claim that the magnetic fields of the Earth and Sun form a Slave/Master relationship. In addition, we do not get very many particles from the sun arriving at the Earth, so to worry that solar water (Also, as pointed out, very very little oxygen, so solar hydrogen really), will cause the Earth to flood seems a little out of whack. Perhaps you could explain what you mean a little further…
Dang it Sphere, you just broke my BS detector.
Think about this. You have scientific knowledge, but instead of publishing it in peer reviewed journals where you can possibly go on to win a Nobel Prize for groundbreaking work, you chose to make it available for a price. Dang, there went a bunch of fuses for my irony detector. As I said, something here ain’t right, and it isn’t me.
Your statement above says you know you are pitching woo and you know it. No wonder by BS detector was going off.
‘Tis Himself | May 2, 2009 11:47 AM
I suspect that their is a lepton link between cores whose concept is treated much like the round earth concept was treated years ago.
One such link is derived on the basis of the coupling of the ionosphere and the upper atmosphere, whereas the HALOS,ELVES,SPRITES,JETS,LIGHTNING are all forms of Lepton transfer,more specifically lepton transfer or electron transfer that continues from the ionosphere to to lithosphere (and beyond).It is only due to the disconnection function of clouds that we witness the renormalisation of atoms and photon production.
There are several nodes(as I call them) that focus the lepton transfer, One such node is the active volcano, this is blatantly apparent when the debris from an eruption interferes with the focused transfer of energy and lightning ensues. And to make the point more valid when a plane is nearby the source to sink transfer is momentarily routed thru the plane and when interrupted by eruption takes place the lightning is observed to strike upwards.
I Know this goes against the accepted function of electrical formation by the mass of particulates moving and creating potential. They are both right in their specific percentages.
Volcanic lava should be conducive to electron flow at a much higher rate than the surrounding topography, much like the more well known fact that solid ground is more conducive than bodies of water.
Anybody have any suggestion for a doozy of a hangover?
Hen3ry | May 2, 2009 1:42 PM
The master/slave relationship that I am referring to is not a conscious action, just a physical relationship between cores.
As far as this planet becoming a water-world well I thru that in a nerd says “woo” Tho there is some indication that the hydrogen rate of escape from this planet may slow with our influence, and hydrogen ion mixing with oxygen species at higher altitudes. As David said hydrogen delivery is greater from the source than oxygen.I really don’t think it is highly significant(see my orig post | April 12, 2009 4:37 PM #1023)*I have a canoe.
Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 2, 2009 1:57 PM
No No NO I’ve done it again with my damn communication skills. I don’t want the money!Yet I want to share what I believe to be valid, yet controversial knowledge…
I LOVE science. So much that I want to share what I have seen. What an amazing world we live in.
As far as a Nobel prize is concerned, this is my dream, yet it is only a dream. I am no more than anyone else and I have studied far more powerful thinkers than I.
OK Here I SCrewed up again
much like the more well known fact that solid ground is more conducive than bodies of water
What I mean to say is the disconect over land in prodominent over land than water
Mabye I should stop, I’m coming across wrong, I feel like shit and I’m causing confusion
According to the ever reliable wikipedia, the Nobel Prize is worth $1.2 million. That would keep you in beer for a reasonable amount of time. Plus you’d probably be able to get a tenured professorship at a university.
I’m with Nerd. If you have a revolutionary theory with reasonable evidence, publishing it in peer reviewed journals would be the way to go.
Sphere, why not publish it in an open access journal? It’s the best of all worlds (or cores, as you seem to like to call them): peer review and free access to all.
‘Tis Himself | May 2, 2009 3:41 PM
As you know I have kept my identity secret, along with my gender and I will tell you this much I am (in some way) affiliated with a University. I am somewhat an oddity whereas I don’t care about money (as long as I can live comfortably)I do interact with certain people with focused degrees and I usually attend and participate in colloquium concerning high energy particle physics.I can never really get my exact thoughts across to people, even looking at some of my post I see where I have not been very clear.
“Tis” its a catch 22 -I need money and time for research, yet I must produce to validate the possible grant.
I have preformed experiments with the materials at hand, yet do to an uncontrolled environment,lack of repetition, the results are inconclusive and unreliable.
I have been relying on others more adapt and less generalised to draw conclusions, I wait and seek out those papers when they are published. I really wish I could contribute more but I don’t see it happening, especially since my doctors say I’m beginning to lose capacity.
Perhaps I am more of an interpreter of knowledge than a creator…I hope not.
Yes I suppose I’m an odd one, I really enjoyed the last colloquium I attended on quark/gluon plasma-colour glass condensate and would love to visit Goddard, they have some fantastic speakers that I will just have to watch on the Internets.
MikeG | May 2, 2009 3:56 PM
I have written large amounts of data and have become very discourage at our species and destroyed much in anger. I realize this was wrong and should not succumb to these emotions, but I get so very discouraged by the stupid stuff that some of my fellow humans do.
On top of that my organisation skills and memory also suck.
In biological terms, BTW, that’s not evolution at all, it’s development.
===========================
Sphere Coupler, when I wrote you should come back when your hangover is over, I meant it. With “a doozy of a hangover” you can’t think straight!
And what is there to say against publishing first and then popularizing what the paper says? Other people do it all the time!
Look, if you mean induction of electric currents which induce magnetic fields, why don’t you fucking say so???
(Because that’s what happens between the magneto- and the ionosphere, and from the Earth’s core to the magnetosphere. I’m not sure if that’s what you mean at the subatomic level.)
That’s a poetic metaphor, not an analogy that explains anything. I recommend you cut down on the poetry for a while and spell out what you mean.
Is this one sentence, or a sentence preceded by a sentence fragment that you forgot to finish?
If the former is the case, “electron plasma” is impossible because the electrons would repulse each other and fly apart (unless held together by a strong magnetic field), and “muon plasma” is completely impossible because muons are extremely unstable. Highly radioactive. Half-life in the milliseconds. Poof – gone!
Why do you think neutrinos have a magnetic moment? Only electrically charged particles have one. It was a major surprise when the magnetic moment of the neutron was discovered, and this led straight to the discovery that the neutron consists of three charged particles (quarks).
Why do you suspect that, and why do you say “lepton” when it would be more precise and less obfuscating to simply say “electron”? Remember: neutrinos cannot be held, and muons and tauons are simply too unstable to count.
What do you mean by “whereas”?
Do you maybe think it’s the sun that charges the ionosphere by adding electrons to it? That’s not how it works; incoming solar radiation separates charges by ionizing molecules in the ionosphere, but no charge is added.
Not at all. Volcanos are simply an additional source of clouds, and clouds get charged electrostatically by simple friction, the movement necessary for that coming from convection.
I don’t understand anythng in these two sentences.
Even this doesn’t add water. Do you know where the oxygen in the atmosphere comes from?
Then donate it. :-|
:-)
This is word salad.
“Quark-gluon plasma” means something. “Color” is what a property of quarks and gluons is called. “Glass” and “condensate”… I can’t imagine how those could possibly apply to a quark-gluon plasma.
David, I should have written quark/gluon plasma and colour glass condensate,
The speaker was Larry McLerran, his delivery was excellent and he was very interested in what his audience had to say, tho there were only 15 of us.
References and further reading may be available for this article. To view references and further reading you must purchase this article.
Larry McLerran
Nuclear Physics A : The Color Glass Condensate to the Strongly …
Sometimes methane breaks down in the upper atmosphere to produce oxygen, I’m not sure but I believe you can get this from (google PUA1911)
I’ll continue to look for this (hell I just read it again)
The part about purchasing Larry’s paper was from the web site, sorry I’m having a problem linking to anything.
“muon plasma” is completely impossible because muons are extremely unstable. Highly radioactive. Half-life in the milliseconds. Poof – gone!”
Unstable,Yes, but I believe they are produced in a high energy Proton/proton collision at the end of a jet and would be abundant in the upper spheres(compared to surface of the earth)or in a collider. By abundant I mean constantly reproducing on the sunward side of earth.
The LHC hopes to produce, what is it 40 million proton/proton collision per sec and these protons have been stripped of their electrons and basically force fed energy by magnetic induction until they are severly bloated, that will indeed be quite a bit of muons produced, (all in close proximaty of 7000 tons of mass)the detector.
“Sometimes methane breaks down in the upper atmosphere to produce oxygen…”
No. There is no oxygen in methane. Methane is a carbon atom and 4 hydrogen atoms. PUA1911 doesn’t mention methane.
Sorry I can’t respond to your responses, I gotta run.
tresmal | May 2, 2009 8:40 PM
Then it’s the wrong paper,sorry.
IIRC it was an atmospheric mixing after breakdown of methane, some combination of N,O,H, and methane…
I’ll keep looking. I think the result was an abundance of O.
Maybe replenished would be a better word than reproducing in comment (May 2, 2009 8:39 PM / #1264)
David Marjanović, OM | May 2, 2009 6:37 PM
“What do you mean by “whereas”?”
Whereas=Since the facts are such as they are.
(or)
Whereas=The fact of the matter being that.
I haven’t found what I’m looking for, I ran onto this and immediately thought that Josh might enjoy the read.
PDF] Lithosphere-atmosphere-ionosphere coupling as governing mechanism …
Here’s a link to the paper Sphere Coupler mentioned in #1269
Hey, it’s working again.
Thanks “tis” it’s appreciated!
Good night all,I’m done for now.
@1242 Josh wrote:
Sphere, the way you do that in science is to publish the work in a peer reviewed journal. Or, if you prefer, you can vanity press it, but don’t expect anyone to take it seriously if you do that.
But you don’t just come into a biology blog and try to explain your physics ideas. We are the wrong audience. Blake Stacey is a physicist and has a blog here. There are a couple of other physicists at ScienceBlogs, and you can look them up on the main ScienceBlogs page. If you must present your ideas in a blog (not recommended, as you can lose credit for them), that is the place to do so.
Nerd of Redhead, OM | May 3, 2009 12:55 AM
The concept I was presenting was massive, I don’t think one person could possibly write this paper alone. There is way too much data. This concept is physical in nature,yes, however it is pertainent to the biosphere as well. Most of my research was on and in the biosphere.
I’m at a stage where credit does not mean that much too me, more important to me is to just geting it out there so that possibly others could benifit from the results.If someone “steals” my idea, well so be it. I hope they can handle the “knowledge” better than I did. If someone took this concept and ran with it and humanity benifited from it, well that would be enough for me and the fact that people here would know.Someday perhaps I may attempt this, when a whole lot more data has been recognised.You see Nerd no single specific field of study could accomplish this,and it would take the development of a new field. A subspecies of all the known sciences combined into a new field.You see Nerd I am quite happy staying hidden from the world,I don’t think I could publish under the name of Sphere Coupler.You seem to be pretty adament about this, as it is the third time you have suggested I change venue.OK I will, but don’t hold your breath because I don’t think it will ever get completed.I will say this…To anyone who attempts to accomplish this task, there are some pretty disturbing features to “core to core sphere coupling knowledge” but nothing anyone couldn’t handle given time.It may be it’s before it’s time, but then again time seems to be moving faster, so it may be developed soon who knows. Anyway it was fun conversing with you all on this topic. I’ll take my leave…peace
When you mean “the upper layers of the atmosphere”, why don’t you just say so? “Sphere” is not a technical term.
Nowhere near at a sufficiently high concentration to be called a muon plasma. Muons are produced one by one, not en masse.
Even in the LHC, each muon will decay before the next one will be produced.
And, yes, methane is CH4; no O or N in there.
Sphere, your response sets off my BS detectors big time. I have been a scientist for 30+ years, and a skeptic for 20+. Now, we have reached the stage of your continued attempts to present this idea on a biology blog means it is nothing but woo. Because, here’s the thing. If you have a good idea with solid evidence, write up the paper and submit it to a peer reviewed journal. That way you share it with the science community in the best way they will recognize you. The paper need not go into the whole idea if it can be broken down into logically smaller papers. If you are afraid to write the paper(s), and want to present it in other ways, it should be presented in physics venue, like one of the physics blogs. Again, presenting the idea to those who can understand it and judge it.
If you have a woo idea, you have to avoid both of the above options, which is exactly what you are doing. And this is exactly why my BS meter is going off. So, publish or find a better venue.
*shrug*
Methinks your standard needs recallibration.
Or recalibration, even. ;)
*glares at SC*
But I thank you for proving my point.
Yeah, like anyone’s gonna believe you’re not brilliant.
Goodness !
You two again ! LOL
When you manage to convince me of it, then we can have a conversation.
If I were brilliant, then I would have figured out the problem I’m having with this fucking manuscript weeks ago.
Whatever. She started it.
*looks around*
It’s 3 May 2009.
I suspect that AlanC is either in the middle of preparing an absolutely devastating response to my questions, or he really has withdrawn from the field.
My mistake, I guess.
*looks at last comment*
Fuck. And today on “ridiculously obvious things that Josh can write”…
And you ordered the damn rain too, didn’t you?
*checks correspondence*
*retracts vague, snotty comment @ #1284**
*Can’t believe I’m even typing that comment #. Please kill this thread before it kills my laptop.
Longest comment threads ever on Pharyngula UPDATED:
[note: where threads were closed and another opened explicitly to continue the closed thread, I combine the original and spillover thread-counts]
Titanoboa! 912 (closed)
I get email (7/26/08) 1003 (still open)
I get email—special cracker edition! 1452 (still open)
The Great Desecration 2353 (single thread! closed)
EXPELLED! 2031
Expelled! open thread 351
total 2381
Priorities 1480
Fresh thread 969
total 2449
Frackin Cracker 1007
Fresh Crackers 1519
total 2526
current count:
Science of Watchmen 1381
I have no idea 1288
current total 2669 and the new CHAMPEEN!!!
This thread can now be left to die with a smile on its, uh, screen. Nice job, people.
Plus I have no idea what it’s about anymore. Nor why.
Nor how?
I think it’s just because we can’t stop.
Shut up, Nerd. I can quit anytime I want to. :P
Really.
No, seriously.
Damn. I not getting anything done today. Maybe it’s time to wander over to the museum and connect with some dead shit.
One could argue that Titanoboa was the predecessor thread to Science of Watchmen. Titanoboa, now closed, had 912 posts. Let’s see mumble, take off shoes & socks, mutter, carry the 12, mumble, hunt for slide rule, mutter, logarithm of x³, mumble that’s a grand total of 3581.
This is a large number of post for one creationist. I recall counting up the Crackergate related posts and they totaled over 30,000. And now I have to get the screens back in and the new stickers on the cars…
Have a good rest of the day. I’m going to replace a fuel injector in a Perkins 4107 diesel engine.
The fun part is that the 4107 hasn’t been manufactured for over 20 years and Perkins doesn’t carry spare parts any more. The fuel injector was rebuilt at a local machine shop, which cost about three times as much as an off-the-shelf injector.
sail boat, n. A hole in the water into which is poured endless amounts of money.
One could.
But one would be wrong.
What “she” and what “it” are we talking about?
Josh wrote:
What point?
the not brilliant point
Josh wrote:
Didn’t he say he had about 40% done before he disappeared?
He should at least post that 40% so we can see if you need to start rethinking everything you currently think you know about geology.
How so? We’ve already firmly established (by using myself as the sole example) that being unable to spell doesn’t establish that one is not blazingly brilliant.
*nods in enthusiastic agreement*
Seriously. I mean, maybe I’ll be able to get rid of some of these bazillion article photocopies that clutter up every inch of my world. If so, let’s get on with it. Let the recycling begin!
Hell, at this point I’d be fairly happy with an actual answer to ONE of the questions in comment #73.
I don’t think your IQ went down when you mistyped that word, Josh. ;-)
Sigh. Okay. It proved no point.
But Bastion’s standard still needs recalibration. Because I said so.
*folds arms and assumes obnoxious self-righteous pose*
Sven DiMilo #1295
Who died and made you supreme arbitrator of which threads are precursors and which aren’t?
Don’t mind me, I’m just feeling whiny. I had a bear of a time fixing an engine and then, because it was raining, I couldn’t go sailing afterwards.
Were you successful in getting the injector replaced?
I have a raging hangover if anyone is interested.
And yes I’ve had bacon.
I wish I had a stick sharp and long enough and a rock… um… smashy enough to put this thread out of its misery.
I will have a drink of Scotch in honor of your pain.
Yes, but two nuts were frozen and had to be removed by generous applications of penetrating oil and use of a breaker bar.
I’ll join Josh in having a single malt in celebration of this noble achievement.
It’s after five. I’m going to pour a glass now (it’s gotta improve my writing, right?). ‘Tis, you’ll get a toss as well for having busted out a breaker bar…
Wow… will this thread ever die? I really wasn’t expecting to find +170 comments since last time I looked.
It has to be the former. We all know that creationist aren’t used to lie, right?
I don’t even want to think of what we will end up talking about if PZ doesn’t kill this thread soon…
And Josh, you’re not only brilliant but also pretty humble. Because I’m saying so, and you don’t want to argue with me.
It’s after five? Oooh! Time for a lime seltzer!
No kidding. It’s kind of like this:
“And the curse goes on and on at sea”
…of course in the live version, the song also goes on and on and on.
Seriously. Shouldn’t we get some sort of accolate for just having survived the fucker?
Sadly though, I think you’re right; we will have to pop smoke on this thread at some point.
*looks around for his M4*
Them’s sounds like fighten’ words
Carbonic acid YAY!
Yeah, specially you. But I think you’ll receive a Molly award soon, anyway :)
Now that I think of it, maybe it is me who doesn’t want to argue with you…
What we should totally do is start up another music war (80s Hair Metal this time*), but I think if we did it here it would implode the thread.
*I was totally doing an air guitar thing as I wrote that.
A breaker bar is a very simple tool, yet it is just the right tool when brute force is needed.
Incidentally, the lesson learned is that when putting nuts on bolts in a marine environment, a light coat of grease on the bolt threads will pay off years down the line.
That would be so cool*. But I must go to bed.
*sigh*
In my perfect world, the Earth would be flat and there would be no need for time zones. I hate time zones :(
See you all tomorrow…
*Not on this thread. It can’t bear such a thing.
There will be another time, another place*
*John Williams swelling in the background.
‘night.
*raises glass in salute*
*salute*
salut
[Couldn’t we agree to move this to another thread? Would that wreck the vibe? I don’t want to have to keep turning my computer off and on…]
Spicy Mexican food.
Junior Mints.
A shirley temple.
Cure.
Or an accolade, even. ;)
(You could check your correspondence, too.)
That’s too cute. :)
My mother, being a child of the 40s and the daughter of a public health worker, lined us up for Swine Flu vaccines in 1976.
I suppose the upside of the anti-vax crowd with their “I’ll use enemas and homeopathy” arguments is that there will be more vaccine for those of us who want it when they finally roll one out?
For you, ‘Tis:
(It may be cheesy, but I love it.)
I dunno if it destroys my Metallica street cred, I have that song on my iPod.
Blast!
*a patter of Stewie feet retreating in the distance*
Pick the thread, oh ye of the slow laptop.
I should be writing, but the 70s war was just too fun. I’m in.
Missouri or Alberta – I’ll wait to see where people go… Or if everyone’s happy here, I’ll cope *pout*…
In the very near future, I will have a new laptop…
So that was a 70’s war, Shit no wonder my 69 ammo had no effect.
P.S. I’ve changed venue”s soooo…don’t ask cause I’ma nota gonna tell. But I will keep the moniker.
P.Z. oh please can we have some more,
perhaps for an 80’s war
It will keep us sane
and we won’t hold you to blame
SC,OM”s lap top is startin to smoke
Holy shit. Sphere is a poet.
Thanks, SC. I haven’t heard that song in years. I’d forgotten how good it is.
Here’s one for you, one of my favorite songs: Stan Rogers’ The Mary Ellen Carter.
She went down last October in a pouring, driving rain.
The skipper, he’d been drinking and the mate, he felt no pain.
Too close to Three Mile Rock, and she was dealt her mortal blow,
And the Mary Ellen Carter settled low.
There were just us five aboard her when she finally was awash.
We’d worked like hell to save her, all heedless of the cost.
And the groan she gave as she went down, it caused us to proclaim
That the Mary Ellen Carter would rise again.
Well, the owners wrote her off; not a nickel would they spend.
She gave twenty years of service, boys, then met her sorry end.
But insurance paid the loss to them, they let her rest below.
Then they laughed at us and said we had to go.
But we talked of her all winter, some days around the clock,
For she’s worth a quarter million, afloat and at the dock.
And with every jar that hit the bar, we swore we would remain
And make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.
Rise again, rise again, that her name not be lost
To the knowledge of men.
Those who loved her best and were with her till the end
Will make the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.
All spring, now, we’ve been with her on a barge lent by a friend.
Three dives a day in hard hat suit and twice I’ve had the bends.
Thank God it’s only sixty feet and the currents here are slow
Or I’d never have the strength to go below.
But we’ve patched her rents, stopped her vents, dogged hatch and porthole down.
Put cables to her fore and aft and girded her around.
Tomorrow, noon, we hit the air and then take up the strain.
And watch the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.
For we couldn’t leave her there, you see, to crumble into scale.
She’d saved our lives so many times, living through the gale
And the laughing, drunken rats who left her to a sorry grave
They won’t be laughing in another day.
And you, to whom adversity has dealt the final blow
With smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go
Turn to, and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain
And like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
Rise again, rise again, though your heart it be broken
And life about to end
No matter what you’ve lost, be it a home, a love, a friend.
Like the Mary Ellen Carter, rise again.
and good ol’e Rev’s stick is gettin too long to poke
Josh is smashin rocks on his knee
Sassy bastion is spellin guod, see?
Nerd of Red, will us in line
If we break sumpin, “Tis” will fix it up real fine
e’s gotta breaker bar to whack the divine
Sven got ammo, hell he’s probly loaded
Feynmaniac”s monks are noted
Rodgers and Clarke come back
Josh,Free Lunch,roboho and others need sumpin to whack
PS check my spellin Im smart 2
Well I ain’t no cuddle fish
I think yuuud all agree
This is the last rym youuuull get from me
Threadcounting rules:
1. Totals from multiple threads can only be combined if the later threads were opened by PZ explicitly to continue a thread he has decided to close. [example application of rule 1: just because Alan and Roger decided to move their dog & pony show–Roger was the pony–over to “Watchmen” from Titanoboa! does not make them concatenatable–it was the doofuses’ decision, not PZ’s]
2. Arabic numerals only
3. There is no rule III
Let’s go to Alberta. Missouri is still being used for discussion of pharmacists and libertarians.
‘Tis, that was terrific. It’s not closely related, but it immediately made me think of (perhaps predictably?):
Thanks ‘Tis! I’ve loved that one since I first heard it. The seasonal group at our local pub do a pretty decent version, too, and if they see me in the house, they’re sure to play it.
Sphere, you’re coming along nicely on this axis.
AAhhh gee thanks Josh…and thanks for not throwing rocks
“Tis” I enjoyed that.I’ve never had the listening pleasure.
*does anyone else smell smoke?*
Had to fix it*, sorry. ;)
*throwing rocks implies that there is a possibility of missing the target…
Throwing rocks? (Terrible tape…)
Uncanny…
That’s my second favorite Dead tune, topped only by:
Oh Yeah,How are you at hitting a moving target?
*hunkers down in canoe*
Moving target? What’s the distance to the target?
Grr. No link to Paul Pena’s “Venutian Lady.”
Story of my life… :)
Which part?
Uncanny or second favorite?
*ducks*
*glares at #1343*
TYPEKEY!
Well since I’m in the canyon and your probably somewhere up in the rocks, lets see windage, tragectery, powder dry…HEY oh no I’m not going to help you out.
*slaps paddle in the water*
*damn allmost fell for that*
*grumble grumble grumble*
*I KNOW but I like it*
Tough shot. Unfotunately, you walked out onto the bridge.
*Bridge flies apart in despair,wood splintering into a haze of horror, e falls and falls and falls, the eagles look upon with a sullen glare e falls and falls and falls*
*Luckily e’s trusty canoe awaits, gently catching and SPHERE COUPLER paddles off to fight yet another day*
And now my PC is beginning to fry…cheers.
Already happened.
And with this, I get the last word. Take that, Alan C. Buh-bye!!!
I have no idea what this thread is about anymore.
I see your last word and raise you a final sentence.
aaaaaannnnnnnd cut…that’s a wrap folks, everybody did a swell job, help yourself to the coffee and doughnuts.
******************IN ORDER OF APPEARENCE*******************
…………………………PZ
…………………………KEL
………………………..SC.OM
………………………BlakeStacy
…………………….*oh hell just*
……………………..*Scroll up*
……………………The End…?…………………….
……………………………………………………
Of course not. Now we’ll have to go make Episode I or some such shit.
A sequel it is then, minus spheroidicity…of course.
I wouldn’t worry about it; there will likely be new characters that offset any omissions.
cannon
fodder,
it
never
ends
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
1381 + 1355 = 2736
not too shabby
It’s been almost a month now. I suspect that our delusionists are not going to return. It’s too bad–after all of this time I was really interested in reading AlanC’s dissertation.
I’ll be crying myself to sleep tonight, thinking that I’ll never know how Noah crammed all those animals into a small ship and kept them alive for so long.
Teen-aged dinosaurs, ‘Tis. The key is, apparently, teen-aged dinosaurs*.
_________________
*If only the Gospels recorded something useful, like growth rate data for all of those fucking sauropods…
But will anyone think of the fish !!! Where was the fish tank in the ark,Alan?? We will never know….
This is very disappointing. I was hoping Alan thick… I mean Clarke and the other delugionists would come back to school us.
Now can we please send this thread to its eternal slumber?
Yes, let’s let this thread shuffle off its mortal coil. Far be it from any of us to post meaningless posts on this ever lengthening thread. Let it go, let it go. Let us reverently put this thread on a viking longboat, set the boat on fire, and let it drift into the sunset.
No, wait, instead of a longboat, we should make a replica of Noah’s ark. That would be more appropriate, don’t you think? We should have a discussion about how this thread should be given the long farewell.
To paraphrase Eric Boogle:
Shall we beat the drum slowly, shall we play the pipes lowly?
Shall rifles fir o’er it as we lower it down?
Shall the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Shall the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
In my post #1361, where echoed Rev BDC’s plea to let this thread die, I left out an “e” from the word “fire.” Rifles, for those of us with experience in shooting firearms know, do not “fir.”
But, once again, for FSM’s sake, let this thread go gentle into that good night.
Regarding #1359–Alan, along these lines, if you’re out there reading, there’s only one word you need to keep repeating to yourself:
Prometheus.
Oh, I must hang my head in shame. In my post #1362, where I made a correction to post #1361, I left out a word in the first sentence, which should read in part: “where I echoed Rev BDC’s plea to let this thread die”.
I apologize to all who may have misunderstood what I was trying to say.
Having said that, I reiterate Rev BDC’s heartfelt cry to let this thread cease to have posts made to it.
I suggested that about a (felt) year ago !
I agree. I think we can safely put this thread down.
Let us, as we say in the biz, pop smoke.
Mihi ignosce. Cum homine de cane debeo congredi.
This post, in which I join the chorus requesting no further posts on this thread, contains an intentional eror.
Turn dog into bacon??? Oh nozzzz !
In this post, I correct, with apologies, the error committed previously, and repeat my call for no more posting on this particular thread.
*smacks Sven for his eror*
Bacon.
May this thread rest in peace.
*taps in the background, 21 gun salute*
shameless self promotion
Are you suggesting that my posts contained intentional errors? I assure you, Sir, that I am fully capable of producing unintentional errors all by myself. I studied at the foots of the King of Typos himself, the estimable Rev.BigDumbChimp (may peace be upon him).
A fitting tribute to this thread:
In this, possibly final, post (posted after the playing of the Last Post, though not the Last Poets), I apologize for seeming to suggest that anyone else’s errors were intentional, apologize again for my own intentional error and its subsequent correction, commend
Re“Shameless” on his beautiful photography, and ask, once more, for a cessation of further posting on this stinking zombie of an overripe and most certainly dead thread.One would hope…..
No, I will resist the temptation to make a silly post about how there should be no more posts on this thread. Large amounts of money couldn’t induce me to make more posts asking for more posts. Whip me, beat me, kill me a hundred time, I will not make such a post.
So there, nyah! :P
Who are we, Dick Ch*n*y?
How ’bout this:
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeze?
Nope, nope, nope. You can beg, plead, threaten, and bribe all you want, nothing will induce me to make another post on this thread.
I thought we made it clear that we were no longer going to post in this thread.
Well I’m certainly not going to post in here anymore.
Me neither. No more posts in this thread from me. Ever.
Neverever.
Nø, nø, nø! Yü were süppøsed to sack him.
Jøsh has been sacked.
Sven di Milø has been sacked.
Rev. BigDumbChimp has been sakced.
‘Tis Himself has been sacked.
…
…
…
A Creatiønist once bit my sister…
It… must…not…die…ever…wheez,wheez…never…
while there is the slightest hope that Rodgers and Clark are still out there………………..somewhere……in the bush
…waiting…waiting…waiting
Wait, no fair! How come BDC is the only one who gets sakced? I’d rather be sakced!
I think.
(This does not count as a post)
No, seriously. They bite hard*.
_____________________
Yeah–that’s a dirty lie, actually. They’re not even good at that…**
**This does not count as a post either
Was she carving her initials on the creationist with the sharpened end of an interspace tøøthbrush given her by Svenge – her brother-in-law – an Oslo dentist and star of many Norwegian møvies: “The Høt Hands of an Oslo Dentist”, “Fillings of Passiøn”, “The Huge Mølars of Hørst Nørdfink”?
BTW, my last post doesn’t count as a post.
Neither does this one.
Uh, it does so count.
But this one doesn’t.
Awesome.
This one doesn’t count either.
The last statement illustrates the failure of evolution theory. Grass doesn’t exist for this period in an evolutionist’s mind because he hasn’t found any fossilized grass yet. Which is more likely? Grass didn’t exist or the evolutionist didn’t find any ancient fossilized grass? Look at the following statement and notice how 10 million years are added at the drop of a hat.
A good theory has the ability to predict. A poor theory needs ad hoc patches every time a new discovery is made. Adding or subtracting 10 million years is a sign of weakness. It was once accepted that collagen at 20 degrees centigrade couldn’t survive more than 15,000 years. (source) When Mary Schweitzer discovered soft tissues in a supposed 68 million-year-old T.Rex bone, that age was adjusted upwardly to 68 million years. Thus, the evolution theory proved itself to be useless when faced with new discoveries. To keep the theory afloat, an ad hoc mechanism of “biofilm” was incorporated to explain the 68 million year discrepancy.
Recently, I saw a BBC video hosted by David Attenbourough entitled, “JEWEL OF THE EARTH Amber Reveals the Secrets of Ancient Worlds”. Attenbourough, a dyed in the wool evolutionist, displayed a 3000 year-old Celtic amber necklace discovered in England. It consisted of many rows of amber beads that were formerly polished and clear but had become clouded, oxidized, and cracked. The marble-sized beads were so deteriorated that they looked like literal mud balls with pitted rough surfaces. Attenbourough previously showed a piece of supposed 50 million-year-old amber that was recently polished but absolutely clear with insects visible in the center. He made no connection whatsoever with the discrepancy. He then referred to a piece of polished and clear amber that was a supposed 150 million years old. As far as I can tell, Attenbourough has no comprehension of numerical magnitudes or ability to incorporate multiplication or extrapolation techniques to arrive at logical conclusions.
Recently, the discovery of spider silk in amber pushed the former oldest known spider silk date of 130 million years to a supposed 140 million years. (source)
From the above article, notice the incredible and convoluted evolutionary logic:
If insects were “evolving”, why do those preserved in amber appear identical to modern insects and spiders present today? If insects were “starting to become quite adept at flying”, where are the transition links of those that cannot yet fly but are encumbered by useless partial wings? Why would an insect “evolve” to a lesser-adapted organism with useless wings? Bees and flowering plants are dependent on one another for honey production and pollination. How is it possible that flowering plants and bees “evolved” simultaneously? If one is mathematically improbable, then that improbability multiplied by another improbability equals impossibility.
Alan Clarke, just more irrelevant noise that does not progress your idea. Quit trying to show evolution is wrong without any citations from the primary peer reviewed scientific literature. Without that, all you have is noise.
Now, still no evidence for your imaginary god or that your bible isn’t a book of fiction. That is where you need to concetrate your efforts. Especially, in showing physical evidence for your imaginary god. Until then, you still have nothing but the hot air all godbots are good at generating.
Alan, holy shit! Welcome back.
*begins to read Alan’s comment*
Sigh…when I saw “Morrison Formation” I thought this comment was to be our much expected answer. Sadly, this is not.
*sigh*
Are you guys going to go back to trying to talk about science with somebody who could a statement as wholly ignorant of science as that one?
And, if so, why?
[please insert missing verb]
Morrison Formation Paleobiota
Josh: The problem is that porcupines, horses, buffalo, black bears, grizzly bears, mountain lions, bald eagles, red tail hawks, bighorn sheep, alligators, etc. aren’t preserved in the Morrison. Where are the modern forms in the Morrison?
Josh’s supposition of course is that all of these modern animals should have existed in sufficient numbers in North America, 4500 years ago, such that the global Flood would have captured them as fossil evidences in the Morrison Formation. This HUGE SUPPOSITION is prone to failure on every front. First of all, reptilian-type animals competed with mammals for food. They may have been more successful which explains the fewer numbers of large mammals in the Morrison Formation. After the flood, global temperatures dropped as evidenced by frozen mammoths in Siberia and Alaska and buried forests in Antarctica. The dinosaurs became disadvantaged and larger mammals proliferated. This explanation is much more feasible than they myriad of uniformitarian hypothesis that try to answer, “Why did the dinosaurs suddenly go extinct?”
Prior to 30 years ago, I never saw wild Canadian geese or mallard ducks in Indiana. Now they are everywhere. Whether the increase is due to humans or not, the case in point is that another organism or the environment had adversely affected the geese & duck population. 4500 yeas ago, reptiles would have undoubtedly limited the geese and duck population since they would have eaten their easy-to-access eggs. What kind of havoc will be introduced to Josh’s interpretations if the volatility of a 30-year period is extended to 4500 years? The problem with the uniformitarian mindset is that one is continually misled by the assumption that the present is the key to the past.
John Morales directed readers to a porcupine fossil in post #745 of “Science of the Watchman” thread, but later retracted his porcupine “discovery” after realizing his finding supported my position. He backtracked by saying his porcupine citing was not valid because the size did not match that of “modern” porcupines. Wikipedia states, “Porcupines vary in size considerably”. After 70 years of Communist rule and famine, North Koreans are about 2.3 inches shorter than South Koreans. Sizes of humans and porcupines can be explained independently of “evolution”. Evolutionists are continually plagued by having to reclassify a “species” when a size lies outside of an expected boundary. Fortunately, 8’11” Robert Wadlow was able to exhibit himself in living flesh before evolutionists could later reclassify him as another species. Peter and Rosemary Grant studied 20 generations of Galapagos finches. Successive generations of birds exhibited larger beaks after a draught season which produced harder nuts, but beaks returned to original smaller sizes in successive generations when the rains returned. The birds already possessed genetic information for large/small beak size which was expressed according to Edward Blyth’s “natural selection” mechanism. Blythe theorized natural selection as a “stabilization mechanism” in a publication 24 years before Darwin popularized it in “Origin of Species” as a creative mechanism. Actually, “large” and “small” traits are awful examples for arguing “evolution”. Evolution requires new information. If I were to write “turn right at the next intersection”, then repeat the same instructions using a larger font size, would that be new information? New information would be on the order of “proceed through the intersection then board the first plane you see”. A better test for a “new species” would be to see if the old and the new are capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. If the test isn’t possible due to the older organism being extinct, then one will have to decide whose opinion to trust. Obviously, many trust Charles Darwin, but speculations on unseen phenomena form the foundation for a religion. In that case, many scientists, past and present, have concluded that Darwin is over his head in speculation. His “pangenesis” theory is dead. After coelacanths were falsely speculated upon, evolutionists repackaged “Tiktaalik” whose artful portrayal is a plagiarism of Barney the dinosaur (google “barney knows his friends”). 2, 3, 4, and 5-celled organisms don’t exist. “Vestigial organs” are turning out to be useful. Cells are far more complex than Darwin ever imagined. Extraterrestrial life is not being located. Evolution poorly accounts for altruism. Ancient languages are more complex with respect to syntax, case, gender, mood, tense, etc. 3000 generations of fruit flies were never improved upon by laboratory-induced mutations. The list is endless. Why shouldn’t discerning people be dubious of “evolution”?
How many horses were in western North America 4500 years ago? They were believed to be absent from this area for a period of time but returned to the Americas with Christopher Columbus in 1493. The absence of Buffalo fossils in the Morrison Formation holds little significance if it is not weighed against the PRESENCE of Buffalo fossils elsewhere in North America. Practically every animal on Josh’s list has suffered from a modern-day extinction crisis because of the encroachment of man, so why is it incredible that these animals would be low in numbers if they were encroached upon by dinosaurs 4500 years ago? Josh’s assumptions are as flawed as one running an experiment without a control group.
What about bald eagles and red tail hawks? How about any kind of bird? Why are bird fossils so rare? Josh’s mention of these two modern bird types is a red herring. Since bird fossils are rare to begin with, why burden the Morrison Formation with their absence?
I’m open for being discredited, so could someone please direct me to a resource for modern-day bird fossils similar in size to hawks and eagles? If your theory is true, we should be accumulating all kinds of fossils right now. We should have massive numbers of mammals running into creek beds and getting stuck. All over the Earth we should have leaves falling from trees and getting sandwiched between the ground and slowly-accumulating “Earth dust”. The 70 million buffalo that proliferated the North American plains in 1805 should have left a sea of fossils. Where are they? None of this exists because you lack a global flood.
In the Biblical flood, as the flood waters assuaged over a 6-24 (??) month period, the morning and evening tidal actions were uninhibited since the water heights were above land obstacles. Tides would have effects far inland, bringing in small crustaceans to form limestone. Some large inland animals may have been washed out to sea or trapped inland depending on their physical body properties and land obstacles. Much of the Morrison Formation lies East of the Rocky Mountains and is terminated on the south end of the mountain range, coinciding with the pathway of flood waters that created the Grand Canyon. When sharks die, they sink to the ocean floor whereas other animals that have greater buoyancy float. Taking into account population densities and localities, water turbulence, flesh and bone densities, buoyancy, scavenger organisms, and hydrologic sorting, the location and formation (or non-formation) of fossils could vary greatly and reflect a fossil landscape that does not correlate with the former living populations and localities. One would expect even less of a correlation between modern-day animal populations and localities and 4400 year-old fossil distributions if the later were indeed created by a global flood. A perfect example of how a flood can easily separates animals and plants according to size and density is illustrated in the fact that the Morrison Formation contains little evidence of fossilized vegetation: “Although the Morrison plain was an area of reasonably rapid accumulation of sediment, identifiable plant fossils are practically nonexistent.”1 Another commented that the Morrison “is practically barren of plant fossils throughout most of its sequence”2; and another stated that the “absence of evidence for abundant plant life in the form of coal beds and organic rich clays in much of the Morrison is puzzling.”3 Another source states: “10 of 12 samples studied microscopically were essentially barren of the “palynomorphs” (pollen and spores) which are produced by plants. With such a sparse source of energy, one wonders how the large dinosaurs could survive the assumed long ages while the Morrison Formation was being deposited.”4
Another puzzling aspect of the Morrison Formation is the fact that its strata are parallel. “Had these parallel layers been deposited slowly over thousands of years, erosion would have cut many channels in the topmost layers. Their later burial by other sediments would produce nonparallel patterns. Because parallel layers are the general rule, and the earth’s surface erodes rapidly, one can conclude that almost all sedimentary layers were deposited rapidly relative to the local erosion rate – not over long periods of time.”5
In conclusion, the Morrison formation is explained very well by a catastrophic flood and very poorly by long-age uniformitarian theories.
1. White, T. E., 1964, The dinosaur quarry, in, E. Sabatka, ed., Guidebook to the Geology and Mineral Resources of the Uinta Basin: Salt Lake City, Intermountain Association of Geologists, pp. 25-26.
2. Brown, R. W. 1946. Fossil plants and Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary in Montana and Alberta. American Association of Petroleum Geologists Bulletin 30:238-248.
3. Dodson, P., A. K. Behrensmeyer, R. T. Bakker and J. S. McIntosh. 1980. Taphonomy and paleoecology of the dinosaur beds of the Jurassic Morrison Formation. Paleobiology 6(2):218,229.
4. http://www.grisda.org/origins/21051.htm
5. Walt Brown, “In The Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood”, 8th Ed., pg. 11.
oh, my. It’s a Wall o’ Stoopid!
Have fun, suckers…I’m outa here.
What Alan still hasn’t proven with hard physical evidence
1. His imaginary god exists.
2. The book of Genesis is not a collection of fables.
3. A world wide all continent flud occurred.
4. The flud dates to 5000 year ago.
Until the evidence for the above is published in the peer reviewed primary scientific literature, Alan is just another deluded fool.
I’m still waiting on my FINISHED
*pops in*
Wow, Alan is back? I really wasn’t expecting that…
Now Alan, you could surprise us even more if you actually showed us evidence for a global flood. Or stopped being a self-deceived fool. You could also admit that the flood hypothesis is not a scientific one. Just don’t keep pretending you know what you are talking about.
And PZ could you please close this thread? It’s already taking to long for me to load the page…
P.Z. Perhaps I’m not the one to ask, but this geo debate has intrigeged my curiosity as I’m sure it has others, is it possible for this thread to spawn once again?
Dania is right. At work, this page is taking forever to load (not so much trouble on the Mac at home with 1.5 GB RAM). We either need a new thread or the plonking of Alan Clarke. Even with the latter, I would still vote to close the thread. May it rest in peace…
Don’t worry Sphere, another delugionist will be along eventually, and Josh will give us all lessons. Josh is to rocks and strata what PZ is to biology. I can’t wait…
With this large thread…I’ve been shoveling coal directly into my putor, may have to set up a rod outside to feed my putor, the lightning is fierce right now. At this rate of consumption our natural resources will be depleted before the great flood hits…Again?
Holy crap! Alan actually came back! Must say, I’m surprised and mildly impressed. Not by your posts, just by you returning.
One small request, Alan… would you please provide evidence for your hypothesis that modern mammals coexisted with dinosaurs 4500 yrs. ago? That would be a big help in getting anyone to give it any consideration.
This thread is waaaay long. Maybe another continuation since A.C. actually came back? I’d like to watch Josh dissect the boy, but this one is getting to be a bit much.
Would you like a small additional com-mint? It’s wafer thin!
Alan now that you’re back I have a simple question for you:
This is an angular unconformity. I’ve been there and I remember being the one explaining how it came about to the people who were with me. Not being YEC’s, they seemed happy to learn.
Below you can see metamorphic rocks (mostly schist dated from the Carboniferous period) and above sedimentary rocks (red sandstone dated from the Triassic period). As you can see, the sandstone deposited above the fold who was previously eroded. So here is my question: Do you see this as a result of a catastrophic flood or as a result of uniformitarian processes? Can you explain how this angular unconformity was formed?
I agree that this thread has become unwieldy. I’m happy to continue the topic as long as people feel like reading shit, but the discussion would be better served if we moved somewhere else.
Perhaps we can prime PZ’s pump into either telling us to end it and call it dead, or creating a new thread, by a giving a quick reply to just a couple of points?
Alan, in comment #1398, wrote:
Alan, I’m not going to rehash stuff we’ve already covered; not if you’re not going to bother to either advance from the position that you held when we went over it or actually refute something I previously wrote. Your questions regarding Bison taphonomy add nothing new here. I responded to this specific point in Watchmen comment #795:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/science_of_watchmen.php#comment-1495086
I thought that Watchmen comment #795 would address your issues with the lack of Bison fossils in North America, or might have at least prompted questions/refutation. Apparently it did neither. I’d suggest re-reading that comment if you’d like to continue talking about Bison fossils. In particular, I point you toward note 9. I would have hoped that this dialog would have moved somewhat beyond where we were at comment #795 of that thread, considering that we’re now at, what, #1409 of this one? This does not make me hopeful for the future (yes, I’m well aware that Sven is giving me a look right now…).
A second issue regarding #1398 involves your quote from the Dodson et al. (1980) paper. Have actually read that article? If so, then you should have noticed, on their page 218, that what they actually wrote was (I have bolded the text that was omitted in comment #1398):
If you had read page 218 and had gone back to 217, then you should have seen that Dodson et al. were specifically talking about this lack of coal being a puzzle for the specific paleoenvironmental interpretation they were advocating in the paper. That’s important. Coal forms in specific situations. We don’t automatically get coal whenever we have plants. If you had read the rest of 218 and then continued on to 219, then you should have seen that they went on to propose a paleoenvironmental explanation for this puzzle that is congruent with the observed geology that they discuss throughout the rest of the paper. Admittedly, their explanation is a little convoluted, but they do ultimately get there.
One would think that you would have actually taken some pains to address their explanation since the take-home message of the entire study is that apparently water was often a limiting factor on the sedimentology of the Morrison Formation (see page 228). How one could cite Dodson et al. (1980) as “very well” supporting a catastrophic flood is beyond me, when the whole paper is arguing for a water limited ecosystem. Indeed, by offering Dodson et al. (1980) as support for your flood hypothesis, you have put yourself in the position where you now need to explain, with a flood, the alternating river channel/floodplain architecture that Dodson et al. describe for the Morrison, as well as the various indications of seasonal aridity that they describe (e.g., pollen, calcium carbonate horizons in the ancient soils, freshwater carbonates in the lake sediments and such). It is never going to help your case to just make up shit that researchers aren’t actually advocating.
I’m also sitting here looking through Dodson et al. (1980), trying to see where they describe the myriad tsunami deposits in the Morrison.
…
Wow, Alan did come back!
Cant believe hes using Wiki as his source tho.
Alan, scroll back, there have been many good books mentioned here and if need be, I will make you a list. I have purchased probably half a dozen and I am rotating them. Reading real science will help you, really.
Also, add my vote for continuing this thread on a new one for us geology wannabees.
Congrats Josh on the Molly, keep up the good work.
Thank you kindly
No. You missed the point and you’re trying to move the goalposts again. If the Morrison is supposed to be the result of catastrophic deposition by a single flood (with tsunamis, tides bringing in sea creatures from the ocean basins and depositing them in the middle of the continent, and the like–like you have been continously arguing for), then there should not be any ecological sorting within the Morrison, which is what you’re now trying to argue for. You can argue for a catastrophic deposit or you can argue that the deposit reflects the actual relative abundances of the animals that lived during that time. You don’t get to have it both ways. What is truly prone to failure is the idea that a catastrophic flood just happened to bury a ton of animals that have somehow ALL since gone extinct sometime after the flood and before the time when people started hunting for fossils, and NONE of the animals from that same time that it just so happens haven’t gone extinct.
Just like cars and microwave ovens are much more complex then Darwin ever imagined.
Just as Evolution poorly accounts for global warming,buddhism,or schizophrenia.
Does RNA in meteorites count?
I second what others said,this thread is way too much fun still,let it live PZ…:-)
Adding floating vegetable mats to explain Prometheus being at least 500 years older than the flood (2348 BCE according the the bible), even though Genesis explains that god will kill “every living substance that I have made will I destroy from off the face of the earth” is a sign of weakness.
Revising a date as new discoveries come in is not a sign of weakness.
As to the Amber, I have an old coin from 1957 that looks better than this 10 cent coin from 2000. Therefore, by your (and I use the term loosely) logic, 1957 came after 2000!
not a supposition, but is followed by the supposition
followed by more supposition and no evidence.
Perhaps because the pterosaurs ruled the air at some point in time and the birds had yet to evolve into this niche?
“modern-day bird fossils” – Fossils normally take a long time to form!
“None of this exists because you lack a global flood” or perhaps because fossilisation is a rare phenomena!
No, you need an example from an observed flood to demonstrate if your thesis is correct. And guess what, floods mix things up, including vegetable matter and animal carcasses. The lack of vegetable matter suggests the Morrison formation was NOT formed by a catastrophic flood.
I grabbed at those two taxa at random, because a catastrophic flood, that produces massive tidal pulses and tsunamis and the like, shouldn’t be preferentially sorting the animals and plants that it transports around and buries (except that good specimens of fragile stuff should always be rare in such deposits). So it’s really not unreasonable to expect that the extremely fossiliferous Morrison Formation, if it’s a catastrophic flood deposit, might well contain at least one fossil of a modern bird (even if it’s just a broken leg bone). And since we’ve been scouring this unit for more than a hundred years, looking for fossil anything, it’s really pretty reasonable to expect that we might well have found at least one modern form of something. I don’t think I’m placing an undue burden on the flood hypothesis here.
But okay, you don’t think that it’s fair to burden the Morrison with fossils of modern birds, because bird fossils are rare in general. Whereas I don’t agree with your issue, for a number of reasons, I’ll throw you a (bird) bone.
How about deposits that contain lots and lots of fossil birds? What about, for example, the ?Upper Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous sequences in the Sihetun-Jianshangou area of northeastern China?
http://dinosaurs.nhm.org/staff/pdf/1999Chiappe_et_al.pdf
These deposits are absolutely famous for their record of early birds (as well as numerous other components of a diverse floral and faunal assemblage). Literally hundreds (possibly thousands if you were to include all discovered bird fossils) of specimens of numerous bird taxa are known from localities in this region. Birds were apparently here, including some rather small ones. Why are all of the bird taxa here extinct? Where are the modern bird forms? If modern birds were, as you continue to insist, alive at the same time as all of these extinct birds, then why the heck have these deposits not turned up a single modern form? Why are all of the birds herein extinct? How did the flood sort these birds in this way? And why did all of these birds that are recorded in these sequences, just happen to go extinct sometime after the flood and before we started hunting for them? That really doesn’t speak too highly of Noah’s efforts.
1381 + 1416 = 2797.
for the record
How does grass not having evolved illustrate “the failure of evolution theory?” This is a statement that makes no sense, unless you’re stupid…or a creationist, but then I repeat myself.
I was thinking along the same lines as ‘Tis Himself. Since when is the Theory of Evolution contingent on grasses having evolved at a precise moment? All that the ToE says about grasses is that they must appear after their ancestors, but before their descendants. This is a RELATIVE scale (as opposed to the absolute scale Alan is discussing), and as long as this order isn’t massively violated (bunnies, cambrian, etc) the absolute age of something has no bearing on the validity of the ToE
You have to understand the presuppositionalist mindset. Alan presupposes that God made grass on the third 24-hour day (or possibly the first day, or the sixth day — inconsistency between Gen 1 and Gen 2). Therefore, there must have been grass on the 8th day after the entire universe was created, at the very latest.
So what he really means, with his presuppositionalist attack on those he considers his enemies, is:
See how that works?
Alan Clarke, you ignorant moronic slut: There is no point in positing the existence of grass or of God, or the action of God, without evidence. Real-world, physical evidence. The stuff that you don’t have, and no Creationist has ever had.
Precisely. Creationism, like all religious presuppositionalism, is nonsense.
When did god create bacon?
because that is my favorite fake day.
Actually, that was Me. I did it shortly after the creation of the pig.
And you want to know something funny about the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? It was bacon-flavored.
this explains a lot…
Satan rocks. I just wrapped some bacon around a potato. It’s in the microwave. I’ll add cheese and butter. Bacon grease potatoes kick ass!
You dont need Satan with that diet,you’ll send yourself to hell in no time.
Ever heard of the term “vegetable”?
:-)
Alan, in #1398, wrote:
On the Kent Hovind thread a creationist said that Tiktaalik looked like a croc. Now you say it looks like “Barney the dinosaur”. And then creationists want to be taken seriously?
I’m not sure what you mean by that. I’ve never encountered that argument before and I have no idea why that should make “discerning people dubious of evolution”. Why are you implying that the existence of 2-5 celled organisms is a prediction of the ToE?
Which does not mean they are not vestigial. Vestigial doesn’t equal useless. All it means is that those structures had a particular function in the creature’s ancestors which is now lost. If God designed legs for walking why did he gave legs to whales and snakes?
Darwin didn’t know everything. Darwin wasn’t the first person to suggest evolution. Darwin discovered the most important mechanism of evolution (natural selection) but he wasn’t the only one. The ToE has been improved immensely since the publication of The Origin of Species. So I ask you: What does Darwin knowledge of cells have to do with the modern evolutionary synthesis?
Yes, the list of creationist lies and misconceptions is, in fact, endless.
I knew it! This is yet another reason why I lack respect for God. Any deity worth a shit would have invented bacon right off the bat. Now we hear that he isn’t responsible for it at all.
I’m gonna go out on a limb and presume that in Alan’s mind, if you have one-celled organisms and you have n-celled organisms and you’re postulating evolution, then you must logically be positing that 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,…n celled organisms have evolved in a steady sequence, slowly, over millions of years. So, if we haven’t found a fossil of a three-celled organism in some Precambrian metasediment somewhere, then this is taken as a weakness of the ToE. That’s my interpretation of what he meant.
Are you that much of a dishonest liar? Tiktaalik wasn’t repackaged, it’s discovery was a triumph of the scientific method. Rocks 380MYA and older – no tetrapods. Rocks 365MYA and younger – tetrapods. So there should be forms that exist between 380 and 365MYA that show the transitional stages. And Tiktaalik was found. A scientific prediction was made and was validated.
Again the dishonesty is strong with this one. A Liar for Jesus is still a liar. No-one ever said vestigial structures can’t be useful, only that they aren’t being used for their initial purposes. From wikipedia: “Vestigiality describes homologous characters of organisms which have seemingly lost all or most of their original function in a species through evolution.” Now where does it say they can’t be useful?!? It doesn’t, it says they have lost original functionality.
This is what makes me feel so good about being an atheist, the fact that believers have to lie and deceive in order to put their point across demonstrates to me time and time again that their position has no grounds. If your position had any validity whatsoever, you would have no reason to lie. A scientist who is caught lying or falsifying data is kicked out of the scientific community and all work done comes under great scrutiny. Scientists just don’t have that freedom to lie the way believers do. Alan Clarke is nothing more than a pathetic ignorant old Liar for Jesus. And the sad part is that he thinks his lies will pass for truth in the eyes of the informed. Stupid liar, you lying liar!
Josh,
Your probably right. It makes no sense and shows a complete ignorance of how evolution works, which is exactly what we should expect from Alan. He has no clue about the evolution of multicellularity. No surprise there.
Arghhh. I meant “you’re” not “your”. Obviously.
Huh–I missed that completely. The obvious solution here is more coffee…
The problem is, quite simply, that Alan and his buddies believe that a 2,500 year old creation myth is literally true. Reality shows this belief to be groundless. However, for reasons I don’t understand, Alan and his buddies think that accepting reality and denying the myth would be disloyal to god or invalidate the resurrection of Jebus or something like that.
As a result, Alan and his buddies use all sorts of tricks to “prove” the myth and “disprove” reality. These tricks include sophistry, ambiguity, absurdity, and outright lies. Alan and his buddies pretend they’re being scientific* instead of religious but their science doesn’t stand up to rigorous inspection. However this doesn’t seem to make a difference. We hear the same fallacies, delusions and lies used over and over again. Refuting Alan and his buddies, while an interesting intellectual exercise and useful for those of us who want to learn science, is meaningless. Alan and his buddies cling to their myth and to Hell with reality.
*”Oh look, we’re using sciency words like coelacanths and collagen and coprolites, so we must be doing science.”
‘Tis–agreed. For me it’s now an exercise to see what they’ll say next.
It goes beyond that though. Even if they literally believe the world is 6000 years old, there is still no reason at all to misrepresent what the other side is saying. By doing so it shows that their side doesn’t have any validity whatsoever, because all he can do to promote his side is lie about the other side.
Alan, if your position had any validity then you shouldn’t need to lie about what scientists are saying. Your argument against science is one giant straw-man, and yet you think knocking down this straw-man is actually promoting your side. It’s really pathetic, you are an adult trying to engage others intellectually. If you had any sense of intellectual hontesty you would apologise for misrepresenting the scientific argument and seek to better understand where the science is actually at. But this is it, you are far too entrenched in your beliefs to recognise your own dishonesty. You are nothing more than a liar for Jesus.
To end this thread once and for all,I give you this divine piece:
This is my favourite version of the song, even if I’m not a Boro fan.
What the fuck. Together with the new layout, this thread is now seriously slowing my laptop down.
Alan still hasn’t learned a single thing, still hasn’t even tried to find out how fossilization works, still hasn’t answered a single of Josh’s questions, and…
STILL HASN’T DONE HIS FUCKING HOMEWORK!!!
If I find the time for it, I’ll answer his arguments from astounding ignorance over the next week. But, really, I’ll write to PZ to 1) close this thread and 2) force Alan to do his homework.
What I’m curious to know is whether he thinks that comment #1398 is the long awaited “I’ll start with the Morrison Formation first” response, or if this is something else. If the former, well…
That was exactly what I thought when I read his comment. He had so much time to prepare it that when I saw he was back I thought I was about to read an absolutely devastating response but, well…
Maybe it’s just an introduction. To what? I have no idea…
Are you suggesting that Alan hasn’t blessed us with the eagerly anticipated refutation of reality? I will admit that #1392 was sort of tentative, but surely that was just testing the flood water, so to speak.
Didn’t #1398 just scream GOD (and his good buddy, Noah) DID IT! at you. I felt rather underwhelmed by his arguments but I’m not a sciency, geologlic kind of guy. I didn’t see the correlation between geese and egg eating reptiles but I thought to myself: “Indiana isn’t Canada, maybe the geese couldn’t get green cards because all the emigration people got drowned in the flood and it took 4,500 years to get the backlog straightened out.” It’s as good a reason as anything I’ve seen from Alan.
But Alan had to do his taxes and it took a month to recover from that ordeal. Cut the guy some slack. It’s not easy to do your taxes. I spent an entire Sunday afternoon last February doing them and I still haven’t fully recuperated.
I spent 15 minutes yesterday writing out the check for the property taxes and stuffing it in an envelope with proper postage. That will takes months to recover from that ordeal.
Whoa there, son! Me, not responsible for bacon at all? I created Satan. Haven’t you heard of delegation?
And I gave Satan the idea, anyway.
See, I pointed to the pig and told Satan: “I’m going to forbid humans to eat that animal.”
And Satan said “So… if it were particularly tasty, especially its belly meat when smoked, that would make the whole ‘not eating’ rule harder to keep, right?”
And I said “Oh, yes indeed.”
After people die, I often ask them “Did you avoid the flesh of the pig, which I declared to be an abomination?” The guilty looks that Christians get on their faces is utterly hilarious. “But I thought it was permitted! Didn’t You tell Peter that what You had cleansed was no longer unholy?” And I respond with “Does that sound like something I would say? I forbade eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil; I spent a couple of books telling people not to eat certain animals. What makes you think I would change My mind?” And then I add the kicker: “Did you know that Satan’s voice sounds exactly like Mine? Peter was obviously fooled by Satan and therefore condemned you all.”
Those who kept kosher can be tripped up in other ways. It’s all good for a laugh.
But as I keep saying, Hell is actually pretty tepid.
Any beer?
It’s probably Bud Lite.
*smacks god for calling him “son”*
*nods understanding and acceptance at the rest*
*looks hopeful for a beer*
It’s not enough that you’re not tortured — you expect amenities and luxuries as well?
Hmph.
You cannot see My ineffable and immaterial Face, but I am giving you such a look.
Kids these days; spoiled, uppity, disrespectful…
Hmph!
What God neglects to mention is that while the damned are not exactly served refreshments, neither are they prevented from serving themselves, so to speak.
There is a thriving business of importing the quintessence of beer by the damned, from breweries all around the world.
So too with wine, whiskey, rum, tequila, vodka, et cetera. Hell is full of spirits, indeed.
It also works for tea, coffee, Coca-cola, and so on.
However, since the dead are immaterial, they cannot in fact become intoxicated, except in a psychosomatic sense, as it were.
There’s always a devil in the details.
We have a winner. That was absolutely fucking priceless.
In a word–sweet.
I don’t remember who called it that first, but the term “cargo cult science” is very very apt…
anyway… about that Coca-Cola in hell… dare I hope it’s Mexican Coca-Cola, instead of the American stuff…?
1381 + 1451 = 2832.
Thread finally closed. If you insist, continue on here.