Ok, I'm not entirely sure what exactly you're looking for when you say "1/4 man 3/4 ape", but it is definitely true that a ton of intermediate skeletons (or more usually pieces thereof) exist. There are many examples of skeletons of our ancestors which are anywhere from 10000 to 3 million years old. In this data, there are certain trends which are clear.
Now, I'll grant you that we still don't have a complete idea of how humans arose; there are some serious gaps in the data and in our theories. But, come on, there's all kinds of skeletons out there. I'm sorry, but if you don't know about them, that can be only because you're choosing to remain ignorant of the evidence.
Many people think the Big Bang theory means that the universe expands like a conventional explosion from a sigular point. This is not correct.
Actually, it pretty much is. Although it is sometimes hard to describe these sorts of objects and events with methaphors from our own life, this is actually a reasonably good metaphor. According to every version of the Big Bang Theory I'm aware of, a crucial component of the theory is that all the crap in the universe was extremely close together (some would say at a 0-dimensional point, some would say just really small --- near the size of the proton). Then, for some reason or another, the universe just started expanding, and is pretty big now. So the conventional explosition analogy is actually quite good.
Now, of couse, if you don't buy the Big Bang theory, then you probably don't subscribe to the "all the shit was in one small place" part of it. Ok, this is reasonable. (And I'm not talking about creationists or any bullshit like that, I mean that there is a serious academic debate in the community as to whether or not the Big Bang happened.) But if you're using the words "Big Bang", then you sort of mean "conventional explosion from a singular point".
Another thing I want to mention is that you claim that the universe was always infinite and it's just stretching. According to most current theory, this is not true. Most cosmologists would say that the universe is finite in size, and anyone who subscribes to the BB theory must say the universe is finite in size, since it could only have grown a finite amount in 15 (or whatever) billion years.
As an aside, just because the universe is finite does not mean that we could go far enough and hit an edge. Cosmologists also believe that the universe wraps on itself in a higher dimensional way, so that we could travel in a "straight line" for an infinite amount of time without hitting and edge. For those of you who don't have the mathematics, think of a lower-dimensional analogy. Look at a guy on the surface of a sphere with finite radius (Earth e.g.) This dude can walk in a "straight line" for an infinite time, just by circling the globe.
The question has also been asked in this thread: "why are we seeing light from 14 billion years ago now? Will we see 15 billion years ago in a billion years?" The answer is no. The reason we see light from 14 billion years ago is that light travels (hah) at the speed of light. So if you look at an object or region of space which is 14 billion light-years away, you will see it as it was 14 bya. The reason that,these days, we can see further "back in time" is that we can simply see further out in space. Presumably, if we could see far enough away to see far enough back in time, we would be able to observe the BB.
It's kind of funny that something happened which is pissing you off enough to stop you from playing a game and dealing with a company, and, in contrast, I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about.
Have you ever wondered why it is that the US wants to regulate (Islamic dictator and harbourer of terrorists) Saddam Hussein, but hasn't tried to do the same to (Islamic dictator and harbourer of terrorists) Musharraf? It's because Musharraf already has nuclear weapons, and Saddam doesn't.
Extremely well said. This may very well be the entire explanation.
Morality is not absolute. That is evidenced by the fact that no two societies agree on a common set of morals.
This is correct, and your point is well taken: that many things which are moral in one culture are immoral in another. Morals are not exactly the same across cultures.
That being said, there is a pretty big correlation between the morals of two societies. For example, there are things which are always considered immoral by just about every culture, and vice versa. The intersection of all moral systems is actually quite large.
This does shore up your original point, in the sense that these things which are common to all moral systems are typically those things which help a society function. For example, murder is always considered wrong, because in any society in which murder is common, you're not going to be very successful, as a society.
I see. So this quote is reported as part of a private communication between GHWB and some dude who has an interest in his saying this?
Do you even know what "critical thinking skills" are?
Read the publicly-reported quote later in the page, and you'll see it has a quite different character. That one is believable. The original one is not.
Look, I'm not a huge fan of the Bushes myself, and I hate to be in a position to defend them, but this is ridiculous. No reasonable person would believe he said that.
Forgive me for saying so, but I'm not sure you said much in your original post which is not equivalent to "the education system sucks and needs to be changed". Okay, fine, but this is not a very substantial observation, and it's quite easy to make such an observation.
On the other hand, it's quite a bit more difficult to actually give a concrete suggestion to fix something. Do you have any? Or, forgetting a solution, can you even tell me about something specific you think is a problem?
Ok, enough of the analogies about how hard it would be to implement changes in education. You say the educational system needs fundamental changes. What would you propose be changed?
Re:Well, I guess that's how Fascism takes root....
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First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.
Then they came for the douchebags, and I did not speak out - Because that meant I wouldn't have to hear this fucking quote again.
There's this other thing called a Casimir, when you have a Hamiltonian on an odd-dimensional space, you're guaranteed (by anti-symmetry) to have a null direction for the flow at any point, and this is called the "Casimir" for the flow. Does anyone know if this is the same thing?
> I grant you that we've done some crazy things in this world, but it pales in comparison to the British Empire, Napoleon, and the Third Reich
Give it time, my friend, give it time.
Loose translation: I concede that Europeans have been, throughout history, the most bellicose and warmongering people the world has ever known, raping and pillaging for their own wealth, but you guys did some irritating things lately, and.. uh... you're gonna... I bet you're gonna do bad stuff too one day!
This attitude that they are the highest form of civilisation that the world has ever had the fortune to see is not only laughable (civilisation has yet to find it's way to the new world) but arrogantly presumptuous. On the world stage, America is nothing but the arrogant little upstart that thinks it beat the single largest empire the world has ever seen. They conveniently forget (or more likely never knew in the first place) the involvement of the French and Gibraltar in their "victory" over Great Britain.
You're so right. As an American, I definitely feel that I live in a completely un"civilised" part of the world, certainly compared to our morally upstanding big brother, Europe.
I mean, frankly, of course Europeans are the pinnacle of civilization in this world. Could a people who was not civilized been able to rape and pillage India, China, and Africa so effectively through colonization? Would an uncivilized people been able to so efficiently mass-murder civilians during WWII? These great deeds are clearly a sign of a superior civilization.
MK Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Western civilization, and he said "I think it would be a very good idea." He was talking about you, shithead. Not us.
I grant you that we've done some crazy things in this world, but it pales in comparison to the British Empire, Napoleon, and the Third Reich. Get off your high horse, please.
Am I the only person disturbed by the idea that people will go to the moon and strip mine with abandon , and destroy its beauty from the perspective of people on Earth?
As the link explained, anyone who uses "virii" as the plural of virus is someone who, out of ignorance, is trying to put some classical allusion in their speech when it doesn't belong there. End of story.
Trust me on this one: when all of you guys us "virii" as the plural of virus, you sound exactly like Don King when he makes up words like "stupenditudinous", for exactly the same reason. Believe me, when you're trying to sound more impressive through your ignorance, you end up worse off.
People who flame about mathematics, when they're wrong, are even more so.
Literally, the statement that "men are 3 times more likely to be hit by meteorites" means that you expect, in the future, that out of all meteorite-human collisions, 3 out of 4 will be men. The fact that heretofore, 3 out of 4 have been men is a reasonable suggestion that this will continue to be true, especially if you have no reason to expect that this will change. The original poster was correct.
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Now, I'll grant you that we still don't have a complete idea of how humans arose; there are some serious gaps in the data and in our theories. But, come on, there's all kinds of skeletons out there. I'm sorry, but if you don't know about them, that can be only because you're choosing to remain ignorant of the evidence.
Actually, it pretty much is. Although it is sometimes hard to describe these sorts of objects and events with methaphors from our own life, this is actually a reasonably good metaphor. According to every version of the Big Bang Theory I'm aware of, a crucial component of the theory is that all the crap in the universe was extremely close together (some would say at a 0-dimensional point, some would say just really small --- near the size of the proton). Then, for some reason or another, the universe just started expanding, and is pretty big now. So the conventional explosition analogy is actually quite good.
Now, of couse, if you don't buy the Big Bang theory, then you probably don't subscribe to the "all the shit was in one small place" part of it. Ok, this is reasonable. (And I'm not talking about creationists or any bullshit like that, I mean that there is a serious academic debate in the community as to whether or not the Big Bang happened.) But if you're using the words "Big Bang", then you sort of mean "conventional explosion from a singular point".
Another thing I want to mention is that you claim that the universe was always infinite and it's just stretching. According to most current theory, this is not true. Most cosmologists would say that the universe is finite in size, and anyone who subscribes to the BB theory must say the universe is finite in size, since it could only have grown a finite amount in 15 (or whatever) billion years.
As an aside, just because the universe is finite does not mean that we could go far enough and hit an edge. Cosmologists also believe that the universe wraps on itself in a higher dimensional way, so that we could travel in a "straight line" for an infinite amount of time without hitting and edge. For those of you who don't have the mathematics, think of a lower-dimensional analogy. Look at a guy on the surface of a sphere with finite radius (Earth e.g.) This dude can walk in a "straight line" for an infinite time, just by circling the globe.
The question has also been asked in this thread: "why are we seeing light from 14 billion years ago now? Will we see 15 billion years ago in a billion years?" The answer is no. The reason we see light from 14 billion years ago is that light travels (hah) at the speed of light. So if you look at an object or region of space which is 14 billion light-years away, you will see it as it was 14 bya. The reason that,these days, we can see further "back in time" is that we can simply see further out in space. Presumably, if we could see far enough away to see far enough back in time, we would be able to observe the BB.
It's a big world out there.
Extremely well said. This may very well be the entire explanation.
This is correct, and your point is well taken: that many things which are moral in one culture are immoral in another. Morals are not exactly the same across cultures.
That being said, there is a pretty big correlation between the morals of two societies. For example, there are things which are always considered immoral by just about every culture, and vice versa. The intersection of all moral systems is actually quite large.
This does shore up your original point, in the sense that these things which are common to all moral systems are typically those things which help a society function. For example, murder is always considered wrong, because in any society in which murder is common, you're not going to be very successful, as a society.
No, you wouldn't, because you'd have never heard of him in the first place.
What kind of troll is this? Other than making a living and keeping your job, what does it boil down to for you?
I think any anthropologists in the 31st century will already know we're a bunch of freakshows to begin with. This probably won't even make 'em blink.
Do you even know what "critical thinking skills" are?
Read the publicly-reported quote later in the page, and you'll see it has a quite different character. That one is believable. The original one is not.
Look, I'm not a huge fan of the Bushes myself, and I hate to be in a position to defend them, but this is ridiculous. No reasonable person would believe he said that.
You got a reference for this quote? I don't buy it.
Ok, I know this is as offtopic as hell, replying to a tagline and all. Mod me down, cruel world!
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. More accurate is to consider MSNBC, CNN, et al. as the buck-toothed stepchildren of the BBC.
That was as strong as it gets.
On the other hand, it's quite a bit more difficult to actually give a concrete suggestion to fix something. Do you have any? Or, forgetting a solution, can you even tell me about something specific you think is a problem?
Ok, enough of the analogies about how hard it would be to implement changes in education. You say the educational system needs fundamental changes. What would you propose be changed?
Then they came for the douchebags, and I did not speak out - Because that meant I wouldn't have to hear this fucking quote again.
Actually, I completely misspoke in my original comment, but what I meanr was, is it the same guy, not the same thing. Oops.
There's this other thing called a Casimir, when you have a Hamiltonian on an odd-dimensional space, you're guaranteed (by anti-symmetry) to have a null direction for the flow at any point, and this is called the "Casimir" for the flow. Does anyone know if this is the same thing?
Give it time, my friend, give it time.
Loose translation: I concede that Europeans have been, throughout history, the most bellicose and warmongering people the world has ever known, raping and pillaging for their own wealth, but you guys did some irritating things lately, and.. uh... you're gonna... I bet you're gonna do bad stuff too one day!
Puh. Fucking. Leez.
You're so right. As an American, I definitely feel that I live in a completely un"civilised" part of the world, certainly compared to our morally upstanding big brother, Europe.
I mean, frankly, of course Europeans are the pinnacle of civilization in this world. Could a people who was not civilized been able to rape and pillage India, China, and Africa so effectively through colonization? Would an uncivilized people been able to so efficiently mass-murder civilians during WWII? These great deeds are clearly a sign of a superior civilization.
MK Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Western civilization, and he said "I think it would be a very good idea." He was talking about you, shithead. Not us.
I grant you that we've done some crazy things in this world, but it pales in comparison to the British Empire, Napoleon, and the Third Reich. Get off your high horse, please.
Yes.
Trust me on this one: when all of you guys us "virii" as the plural of virus, you sound exactly like Don King when he makes up words like "stupenditudinous", for exactly the same reason. Believe me, when you're trying to sound more impressive through your ignorance, you end up worse off.
Which means, exactly, that men would be more likely to be hit. This is what the original poster said.
People who flame about mathematics, when they're wrong, are even more so.
Literally, the statement that "men are 3 times more likely to be hit by meteorites" means that you expect, in the future, that out of all meteorite-human collisions, 3 out of 4 will be men. The fact that heretofore, 3 out of 4 have been men is a reasonable suggestion that this will continue to be true, especially if you have no reason to expect that this will change. The original poster was correct.
Is this false information? It seems to me that if you put Jedi as your religion, then it's true. As true as anything other religion, at least.
Beautiful quote. That's one of the Top 10 for sure.