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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2011 - 11:22am PT
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Bump for Lucy and Ardi!
The First Flintstones.
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go-B
climber
Revelation 7:12
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Feb 12, 2011 - 11:54am PT
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Just running the bases to home plate!
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2011 - 12:11pm PT
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Denial: Not just a river in Egypt
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Feb 12, 2011 - 12:48pm PT
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God made man...but he used a monkey to do it....Devo
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Norton
Social climber
the Wastelands
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Topic Author's Reply - Feb 12, 2011 - 12:50pm PT
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Monkeys are cool
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MH2
climber
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Feb 12, 2011 - 01:48pm PT
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"This discovery now makes it clear that there was more than one modern human in China and some of them may even have mixed."
I wonder if this did occur whether there would be a noticeable signal in the DNA of clothing lice versus hair lice, if you separated Chinese samples from the rest of the world. The report I heard said they had averaged lice samples from all around the world.
http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/content/28/1/29.abstract
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Feb 13, 2011 - 08:06am PT
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Correction rottingjohnny.
God made man but he used an ape to do it.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Apr 15, 2011 - 06:14am PT
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Here's another really exciting find, regarding the evolution of language which traces it back to Africa by applying biology methods to linguistics.
Traditionally linguists have tried to trace language evolution through words since comparative word lists are what enabled them to understand the relationships of individual languages and group them into language families. However, this method only allowed them to go back about 10,000 years.
Now biologists are using the same statistical methods on language that they have used so successfully on the human genome. Quentin D. Atkinson of the University of Auckland in New Zealand had the obvious (in retrospect) idea to compare phonemes instead of words. A phoneme is an individual sound such as a consonant or a vowel, or a tone.
When the number of phonemes in a language is plotted on a map, the highest density of them, like the highest density of genetic variation, clearly shows up in Africa. The languages with the smallest number of phonemes are those of South America and Oceania, the regions furthest away from Africa in terms of human migration.
This indicates among many other things, that humans had a fully developed language before they left Africa 50,000 years ago and probably much before that.
The New York Times has a summary here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/science/15language.html?ref=global-home
and the full article, is in the journal Science.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/332/6027/346.abstract
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 15, 2011 - 12:05pm PT
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using mathematics to understand language? Tony's not going to like that...
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Apr 15, 2011 - 03:06pm PT
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Statistics to be exact.
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dirtbag
climber
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Apr 15, 2011 - 04:58pm PT
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Science Friday on NPR had a good interview with Richard Leakey. The second half of the show was supposed to talk about what Jan posted, but unfortunately I was unable to listen to it.
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 15, 2011 - 05:16pm PT
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Tony has a suspicion of numeracy in any of its instantiations...
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bookworm
Social climber
Falls Church, VA
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Apr 26, 2011 - 12:25pm PT
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"The news was simply too exciting to keep under wraps: A Swiss particle accelerator may have found a long-sought subatomic bit called the Higgs Boson -- something never before seen, but thought to be the fundamental unit of matter. It's called the "God Particle" because it is the one thing that lends mass to all other stuff."
ok, so there are scientists that believe in the existence of something they've never seen and have no proof for other than their own beliefs but contend that this thing is, essentially, the beginning of the whole universe?
of course, no answer as to where/how this higgs-boson came into existence
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 26, 2011 - 02:11pm PT
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the Higgs is predicted by the ElectroWeak unification of forces by Salam and Weinberg, it has long been expected and we've been "searching" for it for many years...
it is the particle which is the quantum manifestation of the scalar field that breaks a symmetry of nature, that symmetry would have the masses of all the field propagator bosons be the same and equal to zero... the Higgs breaks that symmetry "dynamically" and gives mass to the W and Z bosons while keeping the photon at zero mass. Basically it provides a way which unifies the electromagnetic and weak forces... a major milestone on the unification program in particle physics.
The massive W and Z bosons (all of which have been observed and measured) means that the weak interaction, the one responsible for radioactive decay, and for the slow burning solar fusion cycle, is "weak" if it were stronger we'd live in a very different universe, if like were possible at all under those conditions.
If you want to know more about the Higgs, I can ramble on for hours... though your math ability may limit your comprehension...
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Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
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Apr 26, 2011 - 11:10pm PT
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so bookworm's pretty quiet on the Higgs...
here is a discussion of the "Higgs Mechanism"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_mechanism
which is not bad....
and by the way, we learn not only in the confirmation of prediction, but also in the failure to confirm. If the Higgs particle does not exist, we learn a lot about physics. Either way it is something new about the universe. The old theories would have to be revised or discarded.
That's a feature...
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Lennox
climber
just southwest of the center of the universe
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Apr 27, 2011 - 12:53am PT
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Bookworm's attempt at irony through the dubious suggestion that scientist's have faith in something scientific for which they have no evidence, is trumped by the unintended way he has created a kind of socratic irony.
He has unwittingly taken the role of the ignorant, non-sensical interlocutor who criticizes scientists for going on faith (which they aren't), while paradoxically, he would undoubtably maintain his faith as being a good thing, as well as, it would seem, not making any effort to truly understand or provide any evidence to refute the science he would criticize.
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jstan
climber
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Apr 27, 2011 - 01:07am PT
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And all the while he is typing on a computer that was created by the same process he is criticizing.
One is hard pressed to think someone with no hidden agenda could assume such a position.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Apr 27, 2011 - 04:14am PT
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Bookworm may well have a hidden religious agenda.
However, irony is irony. It's like poetry. It doesn't have to be scientifically correct to be amusing and thought provoking.
For science we consult scientists. For poetry, poets. For theology, theologians.
However, irony it seems to me, can pop up anywhere.
The human brain is capable of handling all of the above though each field requires specialization in the modern world. If only the specialists on all sides could give credit to each other.
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Jan
Mountain climber
Okinawa, Japan
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Apr 27, 2011 - 04:24am PT
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Speaking of which, I just watched a talk by the neuroscientist Ramachandran, whom I know jstan appreciates, on the neuroscience behind art appreciation. He uses south Indian sculpture which I am particularly fond of, to illustrate his points. In the process, one learns a great deal about Indian history and philosophy.
At the end, he says, "I was born a Hindu, but as a scientist, I must remain agnostic". He then goes on to mention standard Hindu philosophy of the universe, without committing himself, and leaving the viewer to wonder how much he still believes or if he thinks science and the Hindu world view are reconcilable.
For me at least, that is a great way to handle such questions.
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