http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EZyFzkUC4c&eurl=http://brainmind.com/

  Videos, Movies, Documentaries:
http://brainmind.com/AllBrainMindMovies.html

Amazing guy nad gives answer to many questions I had about evolution, 
but still doesn't makes me think God doesn't exist or are only evolved 
Humans with 100% expressed DNA, God is simply beyond the material world, 
He created it and the spiritual world too, where all these evolved 
"gods" go when they DIE. God doesn't dies.

I will NOT reply to anyone to start another endless debate about it, I 
just don't have the time or the will for an almost pointless discussion.

And yes, I've seen the video about "God & The Big Bang myth".


Please just enjoy some very beautiful and amazing scientific enlightenment.

God bless you my brothers.

Post a reply to this message

Saul Luizaga <sau### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EZyFzkUC4c&eurl=http://brainmind.com/

>   Videos, Movies, Documentaries:
> http://brainmind.com/AllBrainMindMovies.html

> Amazing guy nad gives answer to many questions I had about evolution, 

  "Life on Earth came from other planets", after surviving a supernova
explosion and hundreds of millions of years of intestellar space travel?

  Uh, yeah.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 3-3-2009 7:12, Saul Luizaga wrote:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EZyFzkUC4c&eurl=http://brainmind.com/

Nice images is about the best I can say about this. Turned it off after 
a few minutes. It has about as much in common with accepted scientific 
theories as, say, the bible.

>  Videos, Movies, Documentaries:
> http://brainmind.com/AllBrainMindMovies.html
> 
> Amazing guy nad gives answer to many questions I had about evolution, 
> but still doesn't makes me think God doesn't exist or are only evolved 
> Humans with 100% expressed DNA, God is simply beyond the material world, 
> He created it and the spiritual world too, where all these evolved 
> "gods" go when they DIE. God doesn't dies.
> 
> I will NOT reply to anyone to start another endless debate about it, I 
> just don't have the time or the will for an almost pointless discussion.
> 
> And yes, I've seen the video about "God & The Big Bang myth".

My god what a load of nonsense. Perhaps this guy should read a bit of 
science before publishing anything. I got about as far a 4 minutes and 
there were so many thing already that he got completely wrong that I 
also stopped this one. I do hope that this is not your main source of 
current scientific knowledge. Though I particularly liked the concept 
that because there are more than 50 ideas about how the universe begun, 
all must be wrong. BTW such remarks are useful as indications of how 
well someone understands real science. If someone remarks something like 
this, you know it is probably a highly intelligent person that lives in 
his own world, with little or no interaction with the real world.

> Please just enjoy some very beautiful and amazing scientific enlightenment.

I did, years ago, it was called a university. ;) If you refer to this 
guy, sorry, not much to do with science as far as I can see.

> God bless you my brothers.

Bless you too. I hope you find better guides than this one. Can I 
recommend browsing www.ted.com?

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   "Life on Earth came from other planets", after surviving a supernova
> explosion and hundreds of millions of years of intestellar space travel?
> 
>   Uh, yeah.

That's why the game is called "spore". :-)

Isn't this the sort of thing we tease Andrew about, tho? When he conflates 
"That's really amazing and I can't imagine how I could do that" with "it 
must therefore be impossible"?

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   "Life on Earth came from other planets", after surviving a supernova
> > explosion and hundreds of millions of years of intestellar space travel?
> > 
> >   Uh, yeah.

> That's why the game is called "spore". :-)

> Isn't this the sort of thing we tease Andrew about, tho? When he conflates 
> "That's really amazing and I can't imagine how I could do that" with "it 
> must therefore be impossible"?

  Some kind of proof or even evidence would be nice.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>>   "Life on Earth came from other planets", after surviving a supernova
>>> explosion and hundreds of millions of years of intestellar space travel?
>>>
>>>   Uh, yeah.
> 
>> That's why the game is called "spore". :-)
> 
>> Isn't this the sort of thing we tease Andrew about, tho? When he conflates 
>> "That's really amazing and I can't imagine how I could do that" with "it 
>> must therefore be impossible"?
> 
>   Some kind of proof or even evidence would be nice.
> 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByUod2VmBQY&eurl=http://brainmind.com/OriginsofLife.html

good enough?

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   Some kind of proof or even evidence would be nice.

Proof that life *did* come from spores through space? Or proof that spores 
can survive indefinitely in space?  I imagine we'd have heard if they found 
the former, but the latter isn't difficult.

I didn't actually watch hours of the guy's video. I just know it's not hard 
to freeze-dry spores and revive them decades later with no apparent harm, so 
there's no reason to believe it's impossible that (say) RNA wouldn't last 
indefinitely if caught in a crevasse of a meteor blown away by solar wind.

Of course, the video game at this point has made it difficult to come up 
with search terms that'll find anything useful. Especially when you start 
getting things like NASA spokespeople demoing the video game.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New wrote:
> Isn't this the sort of thing we tease Andrew about, tho? When he 
> conflates "That's really amazing and I can't imagine how I could do 
> that" with "it must therefore be impossible"?

On the other hand, the cool thing about science is it keeps progressing.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Natural_Selection_General_Force_Behind_Formation_Of_New_Species.html

For most everything a fundamentalist says "has no evidence", evidence turns 
up surprisingly promptly. :-)   {Which is not to say Warp is a 
fundamentalist here.}

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> For most everything a fundamentalist says "has no evidence", evidence turns 
> up surprisingly promptly. :-)   {Which is not to say Warp is a 
> fundamentalist here.}

  Seemingly your definition of fundamentalist is someone who doubts that
life on Earth came from outer space?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> For most everything a fundamentalist says "has no evidence", evidence turns 
>> up surprisingly promptly. :-)   {Which is not to say Warp is a 
>> fundamentalist here.}
> 
>   Seemingly your definition of fundamentalist is someone who doubts that
> life on Earth came from outer space?

Um, no?

Suspecting something like this would be your first reaction, I *explicitly 
disclaimed* that I was talking about anything you'd said. I'm not sure how 
much more clear I can be.

As far as I know, there isn't any good evidence that life came from outer 
space. As far as I know, there *is* good evidence life *might* have come 
from outer space. Neither of these statements have anything to do with the 
link I posted that you replied to.

My definition of "fundamentalist" is (in part) someone who takes the 
statement "You don't know yet" and replaces it with "therefore I must be 
right, even tho I don't know yet either."

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

Post a reply to this message

On 4-3-2009 17:13, Saul Luizaga wrote:
> Warp wrote:
>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>> Warp wrote:
>>>>   "Life on Earth came from other planets", after surviving a supernova
>>>> explosion and hundreds of millions of years of intestellar space 
>>>> travel?
>>>>
>>>>   Uh, yeah.
>>
>>> That's why the game is called "spore". :-)
>>
>>> Isn't this the sort of thing we tease Andrew about, tho? When he 
>>> conflates "That's really amazing and I can't imagine how I could do 
>>> that" with "it must therefore be impossible"?
>>
>>   Some kind of proof or even evidence would be nice.
>>
> 
>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByUod2VmBQY&eurl=http://brainmind.com/OriginsofLife.html

> 
> 
> good enough?

Nope. The guy does not know his basic facts and merely uses a strawman 
approach to show off his 'superior intelligence'.

Post a reply to this message

andrel wrote:
> On 4-3-2009 17:13, Saul Luizaga wrote:
>> Warp wrote:
>>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>>> Warp wrote:
>>>>>   "Life on Earth came from other planets", after surviving a supernova
>>>>> explosion and hundreds of millions of years of intestellar space 
>>>>> travel?
>>>>>
>>>>>   Uh, yeah.
>>>
>>>> That's why the game is called "spore". :-)
>>>
>>>> Isn't this the sort of thing we tease Andrew about, tho? When he 
>>>> conflates "That's really amazing and I can't imagine how I could do 
>>>> that" with "it must therefore be impossible"?
>>>
>>>   Some kind of proof or even evidence would be nice.
>>>
>>
>>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByUod2VmBQY&eurl=http://brainmind.com/OriginsofLife.html

>>
>>
>> good enough?
> 
> Nope. The guy does not know his basic facts and merely uses a strawman 
> approach to show off his 'superior intelligence'.

Then: http://brainmind.com/Mars.html

You're just criticizing here, not making much sense justifying your 
point of view, this guy makes *A LOT* more sense than you.

Post a reply to this message

Saul Luizaga <sau### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> You're just criticizing here, not making much sense justifying your 
> point of view, this guy makes *A LOT* more sense than you.

  Just because someone "makes sense" to you doesn't automatically mean
he is right.

  For example, some conspiracy theorists have compiled really clever
arguments about how the Moon landings were "faked" or how the WTC towers
were brought down by "controlled demolition" or how it was impossible for
Oswald to have killed Kennedy alone, and to an unprepared person all these
arguments can make a lot of sense. This is the reason why such conspiracy
theories are so popular and so believed.

  However, "makes sense" does not always equal to "is the truth". The
arguments of those conspiracy theories which "make sense" when you first
hear them are actually very easily refutable, and once you understand the
true physics behind them, the conspiracy theory arguments actually stop
making sense and become ridiculous. You were simply misled by clever
mindtricks because you were unprepared to understand them properly.

  Some pseudoscientists also are quite clever at compiling lists of
arguments about their lunatic theories, and if these lists are clever
enough, they might "make sense" to someone, who will then believe them.
However, that doesn't mean that the theory has any basis in reality.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   Some pseudoscientists also are quite clever at compiling lists of
> arguments about their lunatic theories, and if these lists are clever
> enough, they might "make sense" to someone, who will then believe them.

Like, say, "irreducible complexity" and such. :-)

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

Post a reply to this message

On 5-3-2009 0:12, Saul Luizaga wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> On 4-3-2009 17:13, Saul Luizaga wrote:
>>> Warp wrote:
>>>> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>>>>> Warp wrote:
>>>>>>   "Life on Earth came from other planets", after surviving a 
>>>>>> supernova
>>>>>> explosion and hundreds of millions of years of intestellar space 
>>>>>> travel?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>   Uh, yeah.
>>>>
>>>>> That's why the game is called "spore". :-)
>>>>
>>>>> Isn't this the sort of thing we tease Andrew about, tho? When he 
>>>>> conflates "That's really amazing and I can't imagine how I could do 
>>>>> that" with "it must therefore be impossible"?
>>>>
>>>>   Some kind of proof or even evidence would be nice.
>>>>
>>>
>>>
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByUod2VmBQY&eurl=http://brainmind.com/OriginsofLife.html

>>>
>>>
>>> good enough?
>>
>> Nope. The guy does not know his basic facts and merely uses a strawman 
>> approach to show off his 'superior intelligence'.
> 
> Then: http://brainmind.com/Mars.html

Sorry, I have not been able to listen to this guy for more than a few 
minutes because of all the uninformed nonsense this guy is telling, so I 
won't try this one.

> 
> You're just criticizing here, 

Yes, deliberately. And I advised you to go out and find the real info.

> not making much sense justifying your 
> point of view, 

yes, deliberately.

> this guy makes *A LOT* more sense than you.

He makes sense in that he is able to construct a consistent story. 
Unfortunately his story mainly consists of attacking other ideas by 
misrepresenting them. He probably could have been a great writer of 
science if he would have read some relevant literature and tried to tell 
what we really know and think in stead of just wanting to tell how he 
thinks things should be.

I don't have much time today but if you want I'll dissect the first 5 
minutes or so of the origins of life video and tell you what is, to the 
best of *my* knowledge, the actual state of knowledge, somewhere over 
the weekend. But of course I'd prefer it if you did your own research. ;)

Post a reply to this message

Maybe, maybe not, I have seen his videos more than once the next day and 
even I picked things I had overheard him assuming too much and giving 
himself righteousness without much justification he does justify very 
well things on other occasions, and since much if not all the posters 
here haven't seen a complete video and/or are not willing to challenge 
the conventionalism of general believes I'd say you don't have an mind 
openness big enough to understand what his POV is and what he is saying 
actually.

  He says in one of his videos that the majority of the scientist 
community would ridicule him and others that dare to think different 
from the big bang followers.

I had the same doubt than you Warp saying how life can resist the 
inferno of a life forming planet conditions but he has proved that in 
the previous video and if that wasn't enough here is other proof: 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16zeA-c-3vw&eurl=http://brainmind.com/Astrobiology1.html

Note that he mentions that evidence has been collected already by other 
scientist so is not just he and his pseudo scientific personal world, 
there is actual evidence that support his theories and suggest that as 
the logical explanation.

I'm also aware that we, as humans, have limited resources to know what 
really happened or will happen in terms of millions/billions of years, 
we may be getting to what it happened but maybe is just a fraction of 
the explanation and/or a fraction for sure of what things influenced as 
factors for such conclusions and further and more complete answers will 
come in time completing/correcting current explanations.

If you know a better plce for astronomy videos, for free, I'd appreciate 
the link(s) and visit them right away, mean while his theories makes 
perfect sense to me.

Post a reply to this message

I'd appreciate links if you have them.

Post a reply to this message

Saul Luizaga <sau### [at] netscapenet> wrote:
> are not willing to challenge 
> the conventionalism of general believes I'd say you don't have an mind 
> openness big enough to understand what his POV is and what he is saying 
> actually.

>   He says in one of his videos that the majority of the scientist 
> community would ridicule him and others that dare to think different 
> from the big bang followers.

  You see, that's very typical pseudoscientist talk: Basically, there's
a world-wide conspiracy between scientists to have only one true theory of
everything, and any alternative theories are shut down and ridiculed for
the sole reason that they are incompatible with the one true theory.
Scientists are very closed-minded and are not willing to even consider
alternative theories.

  Of course pseudoscientists like to talk like this because it gives them
more credibility. They want to give the layman the impression that the
"scientific community" consists of old farts who are fixated into one
single old theory, have a strong resistance to change and are not even
willing to consider or study alternatives. The pseudoscientist wants to
give an impression of himself as being an innovator, someone who thinks
out of the box, who is not stagnated by historical (and often untrue)
theories, and that he is fighting the good fight against the "scientific
community" who is ridiculing him and shutting him down.

  But naturally this is just a bunch of lies, and has nothing to do with
reality.

  The scientific community consists of thousands and thousands of different
people from around the world, from different cultures and different
ideologies. They are not just one single entity who are brainwashed by
some central organization to believe in one scientific theory without
question. They are individual, rational people, and most of them are from
countries and cultures which have absolutely no interest in advocating
some theory from some other culture (eg. the US or Europe) if they know
or suspect that the theory may not be believable in the scientific sense.

  And most of them are certainly innovators and open-minded, who are very
ready to consider and study alternatives. Nothing would reward a scientist
more than being able to publish a paper about a brand new hypothesis or
even theory, which other scientists could study, measure and test, and
as a result of this could be considered scientifically sound.

  The main problem with pseudoscientists is that they usually present
hypotheses which are not measureable, testable nor falsifiable. These
hypotheses are of little scientific value. The pseudoscientist will then
complain that the scientific community doesn't take him seriously because
of this. Then they will just start ranting how the scientific community
is stagnated and doesn't accept new ideas.

  However, science just doesn't work that way. Hypotheses must be based
on measurements and must be falsifiable. Experiments must be repeatable
and their results verifiable. Else it's of little use.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:

>   You see, that's very typical pseudoscientist talk: Basically, there's
> a world-wide conspiracy between scientists to have only one true theory of
> everything, and any alternative theories are shut down and ridiculed for
> the sole reason that they are incompatible with the one true theory.
> Scientists are very closed-minded and are not willing to even consider
> alternative theories.
> 
>   Of course pseudoscientists like to talk like this because it gives them
> more credibility. They want to give the layman the impression that the
> "scientific community" consists of old farts who are fixated into one
> single old theory, have a strong resistance to change and are not even
> willing to consider or study alternatives. The pseudoscientist wants to
> give an impression of himself as being an innovator, someone who thinks
> out of the box, who is not stagnated by historical (and often untrue)
> theories, and that he is fighting the good fight against the "scientific
> community" who is ridiculing him and shutting him down.
> 
>   But naturally this is just a bunch of lies, and has nothing to do with
> reality.

Well... there *have* been scientific theories which were considered 
ridiculous for a long time, which eventually turned out to be correct. 
And in some branches of science, there isn't a whole heap of evidence to 
go on, and so opinion starts to dominate over evidence and hence you do 
get scientists who are kind of set-on a particular theory and don't want 
to look at other theories.

On the other hand, this is the exception rather than the norm. Sometimes 
there is a certain reluctance to accept a new theory, but science didn't 
get where it is today by ignoring available evidence. Any true scientist 
would at least consider the possibility that another theory is right 
given hard evidence to support it.

>   The scientific community consists of thousands and thousands of different
> people from around the world.
> 
>   And most of them are certainly innovators and open-minded, who are very
> ready to consider and study alternatives. Nothing would reward a scientist
> more than being able to publish a paper about a brand new hypothesis or
> even theory, which other scientists could study, measure and test, and
> as a result of this could be considered scientifically sound.

Indeed. This is what scientists live for. (Not to mention getting paid 
for...)

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:

>   Just because someone "makes sense" to you doesn't automatically mean
> he is right.

String Theory "makes sense". In fact, a while back, there were actually 
half a dozen slightly different version of ST, and they all appeared to 
make sense. What nobody could figure out is which of them - if any - 
actually apply to the Real World that we live in...

Newton's Laws of Motion make perfect sense. Being able to accelerate an 
object to unlimited speeds makes sense. But the Real World doesn't 
actually work that way, it turns out.

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Well... there *have* been scientific theories which were considered 
> ridiculous for a long time, which eventually turned out to be correct. 

  I think this happened mostly at the latter half of the 1800's and very
early in the 1900's. Many prominent scientists had got a bit arrogant
because they believed that almost everything that there is to know about
physics and the Universe is known, that there's nothing new left to
discover. In other words, that the science branch of physics is "complete".
Measurements which contradicted established theories, while a bit
uncomfortable, were often just dismissed as having some simple explanation.

  While arrogant people will always exist, I think the scientific community
as a whole has learned its lesson and got mostly over this kind of mentality
after relativity and quantum mechanics basically showed that almost
everything we thought we know is inaccurate.

  New plausible theories are not immediately shut down and ridiculed.
There have been several examples posted in this very newsgroup (eg.
about those articles dealing with black holes and GR).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

>> Well... there *have* been scientific theories which were considered 
>> ridiculous for a long time, which eventually turned out to be correct. 
> 
>   I think this happened mostly at the latter half of the 1800's and very
> early in the 1900's.
> 
>   While arrogant people will always exist, I think the scientific community
> as a whole has learned its lesson and got mostly over this kind of mentality
> after relativity and quantum mechanics basically showed that almost
> everything we thought we know is inaccurate.

There wre still lively debates about, e.g., whether H. floresiensis is a 
"real" new species or a small group of diseased H. sapiens specimins. 
Some claim that this absolutely is a brand new species, for a whole long 
list of reasons. And others simply laugh at the idea and claim it's pure 
moonshine. But...

>   New plausible theories are not immediately shut down and ridiculed.

...I think this is the bottom line. There is a contraversy here, rather 
than a "X is false, end of discussion".

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>> Well... there *have* been scientific theories which were considered 
>> ridiculous for a long time, which eventually turned out to be correct. 
> 
>   I think this happened mostly at the latter half of the 1800's and very
> early in the 1900's. Many prominent scientists had got a bit arrogant
> because they believed that almost everything that there is to know about
> physics and the Universe is known, that there's nothing new left to
> discover. In other words, that the science branch of physics is "complete".
> Measurements which contradicted established theories, while a bit
> uncomfortable, were often just dismissed as having some simple explanation.

	You mean, like today's theoretical particle physicists? From their
perspective, the Standard Model is complete. If the LHC finds the Higgs
Boson where they expect it, then that'll be the final evidence they need
to declare it so.

	As for within the scientific disciplines, and especially in relatively
new fields, I see this arrogance frequently. Someone puports a new
theory that explains certain phenomena (in some material, say). The
referees routinely reject it purely because it's not based on the
current model. These aren't big issues/theories, which is why usually
the only people who know about them are those directly involved.


-- 
!@#$%^&*: The most widely used computer term worldwide.


                    /\  /\               /\  /
                   /  \/  \ u e e n     /  \/  a w a z
                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> after relativity and quantum mechanics basically showed that almost
> everything we thought we know is inaccurate.

I think it's probably also the case that at the time, there was little 
evidence that scientists were wrong in this respect. There were very few 
measurements that were different than theory predicted to the limit of 
accuracy of the instruments, relatively few "unexplained" observations, and 
so on. Nobody had seen the cosmic background radiation, nobody had seen 
enough quantum effects to realize what they were, nobody had measured the 
orbit of Mercury accurately enough to realize it was "wrong", and so on.

I suspect that had instruments started getting more accurate, the failure of 
reality to line up with theory would have triggered more explorations of new 
theories, just like photoelectric phenomena did.

>   New plausible theories are not immediately shut down and ridiculed.

Yeah. The difference is, new theories not only have to explain *some* of the 
results, they have to explain *all* of the experimental results, and 
hopefully *also* explain something the current theories don't. And as 
physics and other sciences get more and more complete, it gets harder and 
harder to come up with a new theory that still agrees with the old theory 
except in the places we haven't looked.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

Post a reply to this message

On 6-3-2009 10:24, Saul Luizaga wrote:
> I'd appreciate links if you have them.

what about simply: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life

This in contrast to Josephs' "magical thinking of modern day scientists"
and "Most modern scientists reject God and in stead embrace a theology 
of miracles. Preaching that life came from non-life. From lightning 
bolts striking a random mixture of chemicals in a super natural organic 
soup. An idea so absurd and laden with magical thinking it is equivalent 
with discovering a computer on mars and claiming that it was randomly 
assembled in the m[?] sea. The theory of organic soup is a silly 
childish myth, only life can give rise to life, only DNA can give rise 
to DNA, the machinery of life."

There is of course the ridiculing of all other less intelligent people 
that is a sure sign that what follows is a strawman argument. And 
indeed, I don't think you can find a modern scientists that thinks that 
life originated from lighning bolts in a mixture of chemicals. That 
refers to the famous http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_experiment that 
resulted in organic molecules, most importantly aminoacids. Note however 
that they are merely building blocks used by life but Miller, nor 
anybody else would claim that it *is* life. In fact nobody knows how 
that came about. So, claiming that you know what "most modern 
scientists" think happened is plain silly and uninformed. We also know 
that many organic molecules form in outer space, a fact that is 
apparently not relevant at this point, though no doubt somewhere in the 
video that will be mentioned.
I have not a clue what the computer is doing in the next sentence so I 
won't comment.
Then there is the claim that "only life can give rise to life" which 
either implies that life has been there since whenever the universe 
begun or that there is none now. I don't believe either of these 
positions, so I believe this is factually an incorrect statement.
Followed by "only DNA can give rise to DNA", which is for the same 
reason nonsense. Besides in order to make DNA you need to have RNA as 
well. Moreover there is life that does not contain DNA but only RNA. In 
fact as you will see in wiki, there are quite a lot of people that think 
it is likely that before DNA we had purely RNA based life and before 
that we might have even had other reproducing systems. Oh and note also 
that we also know that there is more to genetics than merely DNA and RNA.
In short, I don't like his attitude. I know that he is factually wrong 
on almost everything in the first few minutes of this video. (As if he 
has read a few pieces in the general papers and stopped reading anything 
after the 80's.) It also makes me sad that somebody spends so much of 
his time in spreading his own misformed view of science and his personal 
pet-theories.
There may be some more factually correct statements after 2:45, but it 
is not likely that I will find out.

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Darren New wrote:
> Yeah. The difference is, new theories not only have to explain *some* of
> the results, they have to explain *all* of the experimental results, and
> hopefully *also* explain something the current theories don't. And as
> physics and other sciences get more and more complete, it gets harder
> and harder to come up with a new theory that still agrees with the old
> theory except in the places we haven't looked.

	A philosophy I never quite understood.

-- 
Always remember that you are unique, just like everyone else.


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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Yeah. The difference is, new theories not only have to explain *some* of
>> the results, they have to explain *all* of the experimental results, and
>> hopefully *also* explain something the current theories don't. And as
>> physics and other sciences get more and more complete, it gets harder
>> and harder to come up with a new theory that still agrees with the old
>> theory except in the places we haven't looked.
> 
> 	A philosophy I never quite understood.

You don't understand why a new theory has to explain all the experiments the 
old theory does too? It's because if it doesn't, then the experiments you've 
already done are disproving your theory.

Surely I'm misunderstanding you.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Darren New wrote:
> Mueen Nawaz wrote:
>> Darren New wrote:
>>> Yeah. The difference is, new theories not only have to explain *some* of
>>> the results, they have to explain *all* of the experimental results, and
>>> hopefully *also* explain something the current theories don't. And as
>>> physics and other sciences get more and more complete, it gets harder
>>> and harder to come up with a new theory that still agrees with the old
>>> theory except in the places we haven't looked.
>>
>>     A philosophy I never quite understood.
> 
> You don't understand why a new theory has to explain all the experiments
> the old theory does too? It's because if it doesn't, then the
> experiments you've already done are disproving your theory.
> 
> Surely I'm misunderstanding you.

	Reference: "Light is a wave" vs "Light is a particle"

	By your logic, if the current theory doesn't explain some known
phenomenon, it should be abandoned as well.

	Sure, the new theory has clear flaws, but so does the old one. Perhaps
one day a new theory will be developed that can, in a sense, combine the
two. That can't happen if the new theory is summarily rejected and the
majority of physicists don't even get a chance to think about it.

-- 
Guitar for sale. Very cheap. No strings attached.


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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
>> Surely I'm misunderstanding you.
> 	Reference: "Light is a wave" vs "Light is a particle"
> 
> 	By your logic, if the current theory doesn't explain some known
> phenomenon, it should be abandoned as well.

OK, maybe I misspoke. If a theory is silent on some current observations, 
then it's reasonable to consider it. If a new theory contradicts things the 
current theory explains, there's no good reason to consider it until it has 
been adjusted to explain that which it says shouldn't happen. Or until you 
do experiments that show the previous measurements were wrong somehow.

In the wave vs particle stuff, for a while, neither could explain *all* the 
phenomena, so people knew they didn't have the right answer. But if your 
theory of light as a wave says fluorescence shouldn't happen, it's not a 
very good theory.

Most crackpot theories explain something that the accepted theory says "We 
don't know", but in so doing ignore the vast piles of evidence they're at 
odds with that the current theories explain. If you came up with a "light is 
particles" theory that didn't explain interference and/or claimed 
interference doesn't happen, it would be a crackpot theory.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> If a new theory contradicts things the 
> current theory explains, there's no good reason to consider it until it has 
> been adjusted to explain that which it says shouldn't happen.

  Perhaps nitpicking, but don't GR and QM contradict each other in some
aspects, yet both are considered the current status quo, to the best of
our knowledge? In other words, a theory contradicting another establishing
theory is not *always* grounds for dismissal.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
> Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
>> If a new theory contradicts things the 
>> current theory explains, there's no good reason to consider it until it has 
>> been adjusted to explain that which it says shouldn't happen.
> 
>   Perhaps nitpicking, but don't GR and QM contradict each other in some
> aspects, yet both are considered the current status quo, to the best of
> our knowledge? In other words, a theory contradicting another establishing
> theory is not *always* grounds for dismissal.

Yes. But the places where QM contradicts GR is places where you can't 
*measure* GR.  Places where GR contradicts QM is places where you can't 
*measure* QM.

Let me see if I can rephrase one more time: If a new theory explains 
something, but the theory predicts things that *experiements* (not other 
theories) already contradict, the new theory needs to be changed.

For a while, light acted like waves sometimes and like particles other 
times, so we knew neither theory was right. (Once we figured out light was 
acting like particles, that is, which is what Einstein won the Nobel for.) 
Now we've figured out that light *isn't* a wave, it's always particles, and 
it just *moves* sometimes en mass in a way that waves move. But there are 
several ways of writing the equations for the way a wave moves, and not all 
of them require the contents to be a wave. (For example, an actual ocean 
wave is made out of particles, but it still moves like a wave.)

If you have a theory that says X is only 1000 years old, you need to explain 
why there are 15 different independent ways of measuring its age that says 
it's 100,000 years old that all come up with a date close to each other. If 
you point to photos taken by Apollo 11 astronauts and show how they might 
have been taken on Earth, you have to also explain the other dozen moon 
shots, the rocks brought back not looking like anything anywhere on earth, 
and explain why all the technical drawings matched the space ships and would 
according to current science also work. You can't just say "there's one 
discrepancy that I can explain by dismissing the entire rest of the 
evidence."  If you want to claim that no plane hit the pentagon, you also 
have to explain where the 130 people who got on that plane went. And so on.

If you want to say life came from outer space, OK, we don't know where life 
came from, but what supports your theory, and where did it come from in 
outer space in order to come here?  Maybe it did, but what's the evidence 
that it *did* rather than *might have*.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Darren New wrote:
> Yes. But the places where QM contradicts GR is places where you can't
> *measure* GR.  Places where GR contradicts QM is places where you can't
> *measure* QM.

	So, if one day we measure things that confirms what QM predicts, and GR
contradicts, and also make other measurements for other phenomena that
confirm what GR predicts, and QM contradicts, what do you suggest? Drop
QM as it is the newer theory?

"In the wave vs particle stuff, for a while, neither could explain *all*
the phenomena, so people knew they didn't have the right answer. But if
your theory of light as a wave says fluorescence shouldn't happen, it's
not a very good theory."

	You did it again. Yes, neither explained all the phenomena, and neither
was abandoned.

	So unless you're suggesting that current (accepted) physics theories
explains *all* observable phenomena, why reject a new theory that
explains most unexplained phenomena, most currently explained phenomena,
but is wrong on a few things that the current theory is correct on?


-- 
Blessed are the censors, for they shall inhibit the earth.


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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> Yes. But the places where QM contradicts GR is places where you can't
>> *measure* GR.  Places where GR contradicts QM is places where you can't
>> *measure* QM.
> 
> 	So, if one day we measure things that confirms what QM predicts, and GR
> contradicts, and also make other measurements for other phenomena that
> confirm what GR predicts, and QM contradicts, what do you suggest? Drop
> QM as it is the newer theory?

No. We'd have to come up with a unified theory that covers both. Just like 
we did when we measured "sometimes waves, sometimes particles".

> "In the wave vs particle stuff, for a while, neither could explain *all*
> the phenomena, so people knew they didn't have the right answer. But if
> your theory of light as a wave says fluorescence shouldn't happen, it's
> not a very good theory."
> 
> 	You did it again. Yes, neither explained all the phenomena, and neither
> was abandoned.

Yeah, OK. I see what you're getting at.

> 	So unless you're suggesting that current (accepted) physics theories
> explains *all* observable phenomena, why reject a new theory that
> explains most unexplained phenomena, most currently explained phenomena,
> but is wrong on a few things that the current theory is correct on?

If the new theory actually does explain *most* phenomena but maybe not all, 
I don't think it gets rejected out of hand.  I was considering primarily 
what you'd call the "crackpot" theories. (I haven't watched a lot of 
Joseph's videos, but they don't seem scholarly to me. :-)

But yes, now I understand what you meant when you said "a philosophy you 
never understood", and I see you're probably seeing reasonable theories 
rejected more often than I do (since I'm no longer in the 
theory-investigation business).

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Darren New wrote:
> If the new theory actually does explain *most* phenomena but maybe not 
> all, I don't think it gets rejected out of hand.

On the other hand....

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726485.700-quantum-randomness-may-not-be-random.html?page=2

"Even so, most physicists are not yet ready to embrace the new models, 
because one crucial problem remains: Bohmian theory, critics point out, 
doesn't make any predictions that differ from those of ordinary quantum 
mechanics."

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Darren New wrote:
> If the new theory actually does explain *most* phenomena but maybe not
> all, I don't think it gets rejected out of hand.  I was considering
> primarily what you'd call the "crackpot" theories. (I haven't watched a
> lot of Joseph's videos, but they don't seem scholarly to me. :-)

	Well, I think it's a philosophy that's an overreaction from crackpots,
that unfortunately has become a prevalent mentality. Imagine if
Schrodinger's Equation, when formulated, was found to be inconsistent
with some actual measured GR phenomenon, and they simply wouldn't allow
it to be taught in schools, for example.

> But yes, now I understand what you meant when you said "a philosophy you
> never understood", and I see you're probably seeing reasonable theories
> rejected more often than I do (since I'm no longer in the
> theory-investigation business).

	Well, not for anything serious (as I don't know particle theory, etc -
I'm not a physicist - I just *do* physics<G>). At a much smaller level,
I think this is common in a lot of scientific disciplines. A colleague
of mine had trouble publishing a paper some years ago. His paper
proposed a theory that explained some previously unexplained phenomena
in carbon nanotubes, but lacked feature B (a hypothesized form of a
phonon, if you need to know). B had been used in the past to explain
some phenomena in nanotubes, but was a much more sophisticated theory.

	It's important to note here that no one had ever observed B (those
kinds of phonons) in the lab (which doesn't mean they don't exist - just
that it's hard to measure).

	For a while, the paper was rejected purely because it didn't account
for B. The referees wanted to know how his theory ties in with B (it
doesn't - he was pointing out the results could be explained without
resorting to B altogether).

	So here's a situation where a theory explained a phenomenon and matched
experimental results well (after some parameter tweaking). It was a
simple model that didn't involve as yet unmeasured particles. Yet
somehow the onus was on him to show it explains everything B does...

	(He got it published eventually).

-- 
For Sale: Parachute. Only used once, never opened, small.


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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> 	For a while, the paper was rejected purely because it didn't account
> for B. The referees wanted to know how his theory ties in with B (it
> doesn't - he was pointing out the results could be explained without
> resorting to B altogether).

Well, that would seem to be the answer, then. :-) I guess scientists can be 
somewhat blind like everyone else. What he needed to answer was "this is how 
I account for the measurements that seem to imply B is necessary."  If it 
wasn't clear enough, then he needed to clarify and resubmit, I guess. Sounds 
like the system worked to me.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Maybe, or maybe he is right and most of the scientist just want to be 
sited on their comfortable majority accepted current believes and not 
adventuring on grounds not approved by the grand majority. I've again 
watched the videos I posted and make perfect sense, explaining how life 
can be supported on extreme conditions and how things developed from one 
  logical step to another, in theory at least his explanation is 
flawless IMHO.

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On 8-3-2009 18:19, Darren New wrote:
> Mueen Nawaz wrote:
>>     For a while, the paper was rejected purely because it didn't account
>> for B. The referees wanted to know how his theory ties in with B (it
>> doesn't - he was pointing out the results could be explained without
>> resorting to B altogether).
> 
> Well, that would seem to be the answer, then. :-) I guess scientists can 
> be somewhat blind like everyone else. What he needed to answer was "this 
> is how I account for the measurements that seem to imply B is 
> necessary."  If it wasn't clear enough, then he needed to clarify and 
> resubmit, I guess. Sounds like the system worked to me.

I know a couple of these situations. It really happens more than one 
would hope. Often the background is that someone influential has 
invested a lot of time in a theory and that now much of his lab depends 
on grands to look into it. Such a person will sometimes do her/his 
utmost to prevent other theories and counter data to get published. 
Eventually the other measurements and theories almost always do get 
published but there may be a delay of several years and they won't get 
into influenced journals at first. Both are a threat to the financial 
situation of the group.

Something similar is happening with the work of my PhD student. His work 
is in modelling the effect of high frequency interference on 
electronics. Here we have the problem that most people in the field are 
measuring interference, we are modelling it. Now for the second time an 
editor has to make a decision to overrule a reviewer that insists that 
we measure up to at least 1 GHz, because that is what is specified in 
the measurement regulations. We on the other hand have only measured up 
to 100 MHz because that was enough to show that the measurements matched 
our equations. (Technically we can not measure higher without special 
equipment and even then those measurements would be subject to doubt 
anyway). Some people are not able to distance themselves from their 
daily routine and really try to understand what somebody else is 
writing. It delays the process a lot and it is not nice to have to put 
pressure on the editors to force a decision.

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andrel wrote:
> I know a couple of these situations. It really happens more than one 
> would hope. Often the background is that someone influential has 
> invested a lot of time in a theory and that now much of his lab depends 
> on grands to look into it. Such a person will sometimes do her/his 
> utmost to prevent other theories and counter data to get published. 

It saddens me to realize I believe that people would do this maliciously, 
rather than just being stubborn or close-minded. Sigh.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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On 8-3-2009 21:20, Darren New wrote:
> andrel wrote:
>> I know a couple of these situations. It really happens more than one 
>> would hope. Often the background is that someone influential has 
>> invested a lot of time in a theory and that now much of his lab 
>> depends on grands to look into it. Such a person will sometimes do 
>> her/his utmost to prevent other theories and counter data to get 
>> published. 
> 
> It saddens me to realize I believe that people would do this 
> maliciously, rather than just being stubborn or close-minded. Sigh.
> 
Of course you can not prove that, but there are a few cases that I am 
pretty sure that is what happens. And that is only in those areas that 
are closely related to my work.

BTW once I was contemplating changing my field from cardiology to 
foundations of computer science (not so much a step as it seems). My 
main interests were (and are) however in things that could be improved 
in Dijkstra's work (I think it may be known in this group that I am a 
fan of his work ;) ). The message of people knowledgeable in that field 
was simple: Don't do it, you won't get any papers published when you 
disagree with Dijkstra.

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Darren New wrote:
> It saddens me to realize I believe that people would do this
> maliciously, rather than just being stubborn or close-minded. Sigh.

	Ugh. Not that rare, but depends on the discipline, and subdiscipline. I
highly suspect it is common in physics and engineering, and the more
grant money that is involved, the more common the behavior. My math
friend was surprised to hear these stories, and I suspect it's because
math faculty rarely get grants, and aren't expected to.***

	This is just based on anecdotal observations, though.

	Here's a common one that happened to me and that same colleague
independently. Submit a paper with the title along the lines of
"Investigating the effects of A on device X". The referee responds
saying the paper is poor because it doesn't investigate the effects of B
on X. We then have to send the editor a response saying "The paper is a
study of A on X, not of B on X" at which point he finds another referee.

	It hurt me in particular because the second referee then found another
(slightly more intelligent) complaint, and we weren't allowed to respond
because the journal had a 2 strike rule. I always wondered if the first
referee did it intentionally just so that we'd waste one opportunity to
respond.

	Then even more common (although not with my papers). Referee responds
with "author did not address phenomenon B", when the author clearly did
on page n. It's quite clear from some of the comments that the referee
did not read the paper properly.

	But kind of pointless worrying about it. I'm not in a position to make
change - don't know if I'll ever be. My take is that the academic world
w.r.t. journals is mostly OK and egalitarian, but experience has shown
that if people want to abuse it, there's little in the infrastructure to
prevent it, or even to detect it when it has happened.

	The exceptions are usually quite remarkable: Either politics is
involved (as in domestic or international - not science), or the person
at fault was trying to get away with really wild claims.

	Also, to be realistic, the fault lies not just with the individuals who
play these games, but at the institutional levels. Take away the
motives, and I think a lot of these will go away.

*** One thing I like about math papers. The rule is that author names
are listed in alphabetical order. So none of those "first author" issues.

-- 
OK, so what's the speed of dark?


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                       >>>>>>mue### [at] nawazorg<<<<<<
                                   anl

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On 9-3-2009 6:07, Mueen Nawaz wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>> It saddens me to realize I believe that people would do this
>> maliciously, rather than just being stubborn or close-minded. Sigh.
> 
> 	Ugh. Not that rare, but depends on the discipline, and subdiscipline. I
> highly suspect it is common in physics and engineering, and the more
> grant money that is involved, the more common the behavior.

Indeed the examples that I know of are in cardiology.

> My math
> friend was surprised to hear these stories, and I suspect it's because
> math faculty rarely get grants, and aren't expected to.***
> 
> 	This is just based on anecdotal observations, though.
> 
> 	Here's a common one that happened to me and that same colleague
> independently. Submit a paper with the title along the lines of
> "Investigating the effects of A on device X". The referee responds
> saying the paper is poor because it doesn't investigate the effects of B
> on X. We then have to send the editor a response saying "The paper is a
> study of A on X, not of B on X" at which point he finds another referee.
> 
> 	It hurt me in particular because the second referee then found another
> (slightly more intelligent) complaint, and we weren't allowed to respond
> because the journal had a 2 strike rule. I always wondered if the first
> referee did it intentionally just so that we'd waste one opportunity to
> respond.

In the journals that I mentioned you can appeal to the editor if you can 
show that a referee did not do its job. This should of course be the 
exception. With that particular PhD project we have two out of two 
(actually 3 out of two as the previous editor rejected the paper on 
dubious grounds and we appealed to the new editor). That does not feel good.

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> 
> what about simply: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life 



Logic - Part 1 (logic and science)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_-pdLZPEAo&feature=related

Origin of Life 2 -- The Simple Life
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gOP3Erie-Q&feature=related

Origin of Life 3 -- Science & Creation Myths
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i25UJG1S578&feature=channel

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On 10-3-2009 11:54, Saul Luizaga wrote:
>>
>> what about simply: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_life 
> 
> 
> 
> Logic - Part 1 (logic and science)
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_-pdLZPEAo&feature=related
> 
> Origin of Life 2 -- The Simple Life
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gOP3Erie-Q&feature=related
> 
> Origin of Life 3 -- Science & Creation Myths
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i25UJG1S578&feature=channel

So, another well meaning amateur. Less offensive, slightly better 
informed, but still missing some subtle points. Some hints of 'I can not 
imagine how that happens, so it is impossible' sort of view. Why don't 
you consult a group of actually knowledgeable people? They should not be 
less hard to find than these youtube amateurs, I would hope.

I did not try hard myself. I checked TED but there seems to be no talk 
really about the origins of life or abiogenesis. That is a pity because 
on TED there are good talks by people in the forefront of their fields. 
Which gives interesting insights and guaranteed a few ideas that will 
turn out to be totally wrong. As someone interested in science that is 
fantastic and the best you can get. (As soon as someone is telling the 
truth and nothing but the truth, you know it is a phoney.)

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LOL, OK...

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