You seem to think there are absolutes..and time and again history has shown that what we seem to think we understand, isn't a 100% reflection of reality. Unfortunately, you completely missed that by as wide a biorth as black holes should be avoided.

ROFLMAO !

You do realize you've just stated an absolute in your attempt to criticize Chuck for believing in absolutes, right ???

EU to fund embryo cell research

Ministers from European Union member states have agreed to continue funding research on embryonic stem cells.
Some countries oppose the research, but scientists say the cells are the key to treating diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
.....
Last week US President George W Bush used his veto for the first time to limit federal funding for the research.
......
Together the eight countries could have blocked adoption of the EU's 54bn euro (£37bn) research budget for 2007-13, of which stem cell research forms a very small part.

I'm convinced that if Europe can form a better trading coalition, they can become an economic power house that exceeds all others. With this research, they may have a chance to lead the world in medical research as well.

Not a chance..
If they have more liberal non religious views that influcence thier research policies then they will certainly excel there...until the U.S. wakes up.

Economically? They are going to go through great growing pains. The collective systems there are relentlessly opposed to imagination, creation, increased profits and technology.

The EU loves to laugh at the U.S. as an example of a failure of 'capitalism'. Our 4% unemployment rate compared to France's 15% (even that is understated, France calculates differently),



Americans never think like that. The Japanese are perhaps sharper but slower to respond, but Americans are BOLDER.....and all is right with the world.

Addledkirk, you're making errors of assumption all over the place. You assume science is like religion, giving a be-all and end-all answer to whatever question. But science is SELF-CORRECTING. That is why scientists have no problem at all when they get a totally new or different answer to a question, and why the uneducated public at large throw their hands in the air and complain that science can't even give a consistent answer, so what's it worth then? If you want to go and believe in god, hey, be my guest.

Let's follow through on your next ridiculous assumption. If you think it's soooo likely that there is a planet somewhere (at 0.000001%, there has to be hundreds in the universe!!) where apples fall UP off the trees, hey - I'll paint your billboard that you can wear as you parade up and down the streets declaring it to everybody.

Once again, people with BRAINS in their head say that basic physics gets refined, but has remained unchanged for hundreds of years. Nuclear physics and cosmology is another story, but scientists understand that those disciplines are still in their infancy. There is no BELIEF anywhere. There is 'Uniformitarianism' from Geology - the processes we see today can be DEMONSTRATED to have acted in the same way, under the same rules , in the past. Why should we expect that things will diverge in the future? Is it possible? sure. But I'm not wasting my time looking for a 'reverse gravity' planet to PROVE some bullshit religion argument that 'science is wrong yet again'.

Your argument amounts to statements like these:
'Gravity shown to be repulsive on some planets.'
'Spot in the universe found where light stands still instead of travelling.'
'Strong nuclear force suddenly breaks down everywhere, fabric of universe unravelling.'
'Dinosaur suddenly appears in middle of Vatican, eats god's representative on earth.'
'Magnetism no longer in effect. Throw out your compasses.'
'White and Black switch themselves. Zebras unaffected.'

This is what you're arguing for.

Is there a better way to detect ET?

We'll talk to the government about it as soon as we've finished building the Dyson sphere. And getting the city to upgrade the sewer system.

Well, with the same rig (P5WDG2-WS, D950 3.4GHz, OCZ PC8000) i'm able to do two workunits in nearly 2 hours (7600 sec.).
Another rig i have has the same config.

Ok, im running an optimized client (Chickens Build) and overclocked my rig stable (under full load) to 4.255GHz.

Actually i try 4.518GHz :-)

Helli

Different winning lottery number combinations don't violate the laws of physics that that poster was defending.

Additionally, it is impossible to claim "we are %99.999 sure ofxyz unless we KNOW what would constitute being %100 certain of xyz. It's meaningless to assert certitude of %99 or %1. Both are equally baseless at this point. We can state assertions with certainty within a realm of context. Example: If I drop this bowling ball off this skyscraper it will fall at x rate and hit the street below UNLESS it is somehow counteracted upon by an opposing force. If it were to suddenly float up in the sky we know that this does NOT mean the law of gravity has been violated. It is contextually absolute and certain.

Think about THAT!
Carl Sagan often warned about nuclear winter in the 80's, when it seemed that Reagan was about to push the button at any instant. He used examples of civilizations that had nuked themselves out of existence more than once.

What if his warning turns out to be even bleaker than that? What if ruin after ruin is the only thing out there?! Somebody has to be the most advanced - wouldn't it be a crapper if that was US?!?

Maybe our lovely little war-riddled planet is simply being sequestered from a rich galactic civilization, that would no more invite our membership at the present than you would invite chimps to a dinner party.

I am not suggesting even for one second that we abandon SETI due to this speculation. But I'd have to agree with Fermi - where the heck is everyone?!?


PS - Much as I hate BOINC and refuse to use it, I still love the idea of SETI. So I'll happily and agreeably talk about these other subjects.

As the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon said: "The surest sign that there is intelligent alien life is that it hasn't tried to contact US."

We don't know that the laws of the universe will continue to work in the future as they do at this moment. We have reason to believe they will..and believe is equivalent with faith.

WRONG. AGAIN.

We don't have "reason to believe." We have "logical precedent". EVRYTHING we see, everywhere, acts as if the physical laws were the same the whole time the universe was in existence. Geologists call it 'Uniformitarianism', and it holds up to experiment after experiment.

We have SOLID LOGICAL SCIENTIFIC PRECEDENT to predict that "the laws of the universe will continue to work in the future as they do at this moment." That is NOT faith. Faith is unquestioning stupidity, it is a conviction based on human emotion and desire. It is a childish attempt to control destiny and make reality conform to your desires. It is praying. That is faith.

I don't know why I bother to post in here when most of the people blurt utter bullshit with no trace of forethought.

See I still tend to think that any alien SETI program would be attempting to make contact useing the lowest common technological dinmoinator. I would say that the high tech stuff, multi-demensional messages, sub-atomic messages ect ect ect would likely be less of a alien SETI program and more likely they're common comm configuration. So most likely atleast on a first contact basis you'd be likely to see a 'low tech' message, say something that says 'We're here, now look here for more'

Yes that makes sense. ;)

Agreed. Now that all 3 of us (Incredible Hulk and weirdo guy) have solved this epic problem, what's next? LOL

Well now we could expose Einstein's mistakes in his theories and while we are at it, discover a way to travel faster than light.

Then, after we do that, we give the technology free to all the world so that all may unite and cooperate in the construction of a huge spaceship which we will then use to travel to our neighbouring stars and beyond, and finally find out whether or not we are alone as intelligent species.
I guess after that we can detach from Seti@home.

Yes ok, now where did I leave my coffee?

That's a good point.

I read an article where dolphins actually have names for each other in dolphin language. Although life is almost assured elsewhere, the question is are they intelligent enough and able to communicate. I agree with enigma and others with the limitations of physics.

Thus, why would they communicate? The only reason I can think of is the hope of receiving information that might help or enlighten us or them.

The limitation of physics might not be a problem because of my personal belief system. That is that the speed of light is based on the same laws that govern electrodynamics. As such if there were a truly neutral partical, there would be no reason for it to obey the cosmic speed limit. Detection would be a problem but....

Using a resonance feedback mechanism might be possible to negate the electrodynamics of matter from the outside environment which would also render it invisible. Laymans terms would say cloaking device and reference the philadelphia experiment. The idea is not really that wild, you simply need the proper detection, response time, power and feedback. Anyone can go to the store and spend $100 or more on a pair of earphones that does this with sound for reducing ambient noise in noisy areas or for improving music. We can do it with sound and theoretically, we can do it with light. We only need the precision and power and faster than light travel should be possible.

There are other things to consider like psychology. We are applying what we think/know to other's that may havea different and equally valid approach to how they do things.

Well, the only about that is that we can only apply that which we already know, we can not apply that which we don't know and that more then anything is probobly the single greatest limiting factor, next to technology.

Cool green tea:)nice

Yeah mi fish try to mate but they are still yung i think...
I used salt to medicate mi fish too:)
Oh yeah and how much does an Angelfish kost in the US ore Australia?