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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 12/01/2003 :  20:46:46   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Walt wrote:
quote:
...and how else can a planetary organism do that except through a specie like us?
I recall an old animated short, in which these gigantic plants grew on a planet. The plants were basically huge cannons for their own seeds, which they'd shoot out into space. Some of the seeds would, simply by chance, crash-land on another suitable planet, and the plants' life cycle would start anew.

Of course, the mechanics of this would be extreme, to say the least. The evolutionary implications are downright nasty.

But, back to your point... There was a time when there was no life on land, here on Earth. Super-intelligent bacterial philosophers, back then, might have thought much like you are now, Walt: "this entire tide pool (and all the species within it) is one organism, looking to reproduce." While this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, I'm not sure I can see a fundamental difference.

And human beings may very well not be the best in terms of "reproductive organs" this planet might create. Filthy's big freakin' rock impact may pave the way for something better to arise ("better" as in "less tribal, less territorial, more cooperative, etc."), which might lead to less, uh, bribery and corruption amongst the resulting new worlds.

Of course, no matter what, the result is largely pointless, as we understand things now. The universe is either headed towards a "Big Crunch" or towards heat death, and there doesn't appear to be any way to get "out." Perhaps future physicists will find a way, but I wouldn't count on it. In the end, it doesn't really matter whether humanity (such as it might be) is wiped out because the last star we find to colonize (umpty-umpty billion years from now) finally winks out, or because a rock the size of Rhode Island smacks into us five years from today. Our descendants will, at some point in time, cease to exist in this universe. All of them.

Well... What a big freakin' downer I am. I am disinviting myself to any and all parties until I cheer the hell up.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 12/02/2003 :  04:34:03   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
quote:
Well... What a big freakin' downer I am. I am disinviting myself to any and all parties until I cheer the hell up.
-

You can come to my party, if I ever throw one. I can promise a wonderfully depressing blow-out where you can get so smoked and drunk that your eyeballs will fall down into your ass, and nobody's gonna care 'cause the world has a shitty outlook, anyway.

The fact is that there is no gaurentee that life after a Big Freakin' Smack-Down will evolve anything like what we think of as 'intelligence'. Indeed, we just might be alone in the universe. Hell, we are alone. It is unlikely that there is anything even resembling us anywhere else (sorry 'bout that, fellow trekkies). This is not to say that there is no other life out there, no. It merely states that there is no evidence that 'sapience', as we know it, has any long-term, survival value. In fact, quite the contrary. We seem to have an inglorious history of happily slitting our own throats with rusty hacksaw blades. And we haven't been around all that long.

Nice thoughts for 6:00 am, yes?


"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 12/02/2003 :  11:12:49   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Filthy wrote:
quote:
You can come to my party, if I ever throw one. I can promise a wonderfully depressing blow-out where you can get so smoked and drunk that your eyeballs will fall down into your ass, and nobody's gonna care 'cause the world has a shitty outlook, anyway.
Gee, thanks! Will the party be Bring Your Own Noose?
quote:
And we haven't been around all that long.
Around 200,000 years. Let's talk again about the success or failure of Homo sapiens sapiens in 99,800,000 years or so.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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walt fristoe
SFN Regular

USA
505 Posts

Posted - 12/02/2003 :  11:19:19   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send walt fristoe a Private Message
I completely agree, filthy. I don't think there are any other "Technologically Competent Organisms" in the universe. That's not to say that others may not eventually evolve, but I think we're the first. After all, they'd either have to arise pretty much all at once, or one would arise before others. I think the latter is the actual case. And even though, according to Rare Earth, after every mass extinction event life on Earth has not only survived, but thrived, producing greater diversity than the previous cycle, there is indeed no guarantee that sentience would arise again.

And I'd also like to point out that even though the universe may eventually become uninhabitable, that really has no bearing on the reproduction of organisms, either planetary or otherwise. And besides, maybe future science will find a way to enable life to either migrate to another existing universe or even to create another universe to migrate to. I don't think we can be sure of anything at this point in our learning curve.

"If God chose George Bus of all the people in the world, how good could God be?"
Bill Maher
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 12/02/2003 :  13:46:38   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
Let us not be too hasty. The only guarentee evolution makes is that all species will evolve. It doesn't state which direction that evolution will take. It is concievable that there are sapient species out there that are so alien to us that we would never recognize them as 'intelligent'. It would depend, I think, on the conditions under which the species evolved.

Life has shown it's self to be incredably adaptive just here on Earth. The deep-sea, hydrothermal vents, abounding with life under horrible (to us) conditions, are a prime example. Also there are colonial bacteria that consume minerals and excrete sulphuric acid.

I wonder; what were the conditions that divided the ape-like primates and set our ancient ancestors and relitives upon the path to idiotcy sapience? Some current thought is that 'we' came out of the forests and began making a living upon the more dangerous savannas. But I doubt if that's all there is to it.

Ah well. Failing a big, freakin' time machine, I'll settle for a berth on a big, freakin' space ship. Sadly, I'm not likely to get either.


"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9688 Posts

Posted - 12/02/2003 :  18:47:43   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Sea Sorbust

While the longterm goal should be Mars, we luckily have Moon just sitting there begging to be colonized and to house early warning asteroidal/comet hunting telescopes.
I'm all for it. Both Moon and Mars.
quote:


Maybe 20 years ago made sense to ignore Venus but now we know about "invisible" impactors coming in from Sun

Could you please elaborate on Venus, I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say...
Venus is not an option for terraforming.
quote:

But if defence IS possible so is it possible to "guide" orbit of asteroid to strike some specific place on Earth, give or take a hundred miles or so.

Hardly... With the parallax we have on earth it's not enough to determine distance with such accuracy, within a few hundred miles. You have to consider Earth's rotation too. Longitude perhaps, but not latitude.
quote:

Claim that with a 100+yard iron-nickel impactor, hundred-mile bull's eye miss is nearly irrelevant.
With a 100 yard square iron-nickle we are talking about 10 million metric tonnes and more. I'd say it's a planet-killer, however don't take my word for it, I don't have time to look it up right now.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 12/02/2003 :  20:23:06   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Dr. Mabuse wrote:
quote:
With a 100 yard square iron-nickle we are talking about 10 million metric tonnes and more. I'd say it's a planet-killer, however don't take my word for it, I don't have time to look it up right now.
I did. A 100- to 200-meter (round) asteroid, according to this simulation report, delivers the equivalent of 300 megatons of TNT, killing an average of 310,000 people per impact. About a 1 in 1,359 chance each year of being hit by one in that size range.

On the other hand, this report claims that a 100-meter impactor will devastate 7,200 square miles (47 mile radius) and kill 3 million if it hits an "inhabited" area (which one will, on average, every 8,000 years).

There seems to be a lot of variability in the simulations.

This report indicates to me that humans would probably become extinct due to a 5,000-meter asteroid impact, after which "photosynthesis stops for months."
quote:
Hardly... With the parallax we have on earth it's not enough to determine distance with such accuracy, within a few hundred miles. You have to consider Earth's rotation too. Longitude perhaps, but not latitude.
Nah, Sea Sorbust is talking about guiding an asteroid towards a target here on Earth. We can land vehicles fairly accurately on the Moon or Mars. I'd say, given the right sort of engine (which doesn't yet appear to exist), we could target an asteroid to hit Earth within a given 100-mile radius. It may take several orbits (of the Sun), which wouldn't make it the best kind of "immediate response" weapon, but it'd be possible.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Dr. Mabuse
Septic Fiend

Sweden
9688 Posts

Posted - 12/02/2003 :  21:09:25   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Send Dr. Mabuse an ICQ Message Send Dr. Mabuse a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.

Dr. Mabuse wrote:
quote:
With a 100 yard square iron-nickle we are talking about 10 million metric tonnes and more. I'd say it's a planet-killer, however don't take my word for it, I don't have time to look it up right now.
I did. A 100- to 200-meter (round) asteroid, according to this simulation report, delivers the equivalent of 300 megatons of TNT, killing an average of 310,000 people per impact. About a 1 in 1,359 chance each year of being hit by one in that size range.

On the other hand, this report claims that a 100-meter impactor will devastate 7,200 square miles (47 mile radius) and kill 3 million if it hits an "inhabited" area (which one will, on average, every 8,000 years).

There seems to be a lot of variability in the simulations.

Again I'm pressed for time in this response, but my question then is: Has the type of impactor been taken into account? There's a huge difference between a Oort-cloud comet and an Asteroid-field Iron-Nickel. Were talking about the mass being 100 times higher. It will also depend on where the asteroid is supposed to come from. A NEO will have a different trajectory and speed compared to a visitor from the Asteroid-belt.

Dr. Mabuse - "When the going gets tough, the tough get Duct-tape..."
Dr. Mabuse whisper.mp3

"Equivocation is not just a job, for a creationist it's a way of life..." Dr. Mabuse

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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 12/02/2003 :  21:21:18   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
I believe the above figures, Doc, are for the average asteroid. Comets of a similar size, as you note, will have a much lower amount of damage due to a (generally) lower kinetic energy.

About a year ago, I found a impact calculator out on the web, using Javascript. I've had a hard-drive failure since then, and so no longer have the bookmark, and I could not find the page again with Google. It took into account speed and angle, as well as composition and size, and would give you the approximate yield in megatons, along with approximate crater diameter were the big freakin' hypothetical rock to hit land.

If I rememeber correctly from that, and from reading earlier tonight, the "planet killing" asteroids are up around 10 kilometers across. The 100 meter rocks are mere nuisances by comparison.

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend

USA
68 Posts

Posted - 12/06/2003 :  08:08:30   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Sea Sorbust a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Renae

"Foof-headed?" How many of these foofs do you actually know, Sea?

Don't need any direct evidence of their foofiness; what else would one call "scientists" who, just to keep their research going and profits rolling in, continue to work in areas which either by accidental mistake or deliberate design could eliminate most of humanity. It is purely selfish motivations which keeps any and all bioresearchers from demanding an immediate halt to bioresearch -- worldwide!

As to your love for antibiotics for trivia: It has been decades since the hue and cry has been fielded to immediately cease and desist the use of antibiotics in all but the most dire of cases. Australia has been at the crisis level for at least 20 years -- plagued by new and frightening antibiotic-resistant microbes.

Overuse of antibiotics alone is a catastrophic level of disaster lurking in the wings. Never mind the creation of deadly new diseases by bioresearchers; indiscriminate widespread medical use of antibiotics and natural evolutionary processes might be the pathway which leads to our demise as a species.
quote:


Renae:
I just realized I'm arguing via the Internet with someone who thinks we should colonize Mars because evil scientists might try and kill us all. Good grief. I need a life.


To quote from Dave W.: "You're an idiot, Renae." As far as I know, Mars and biotechnology have nothing whatsoever to do with one another.

"This is the forest primeval...."
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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend

USA
68 Posts

Posted - 12/06/2003 :  09:07:20   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Sea Sorbust a Private Message
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.

Sea Sorbust wrote:
quote:

You are very wrong and extremely short-sighted, Dave. Can't imagine who, looking at likely, if not long-term certain, down side of biological research and implementation, would not call the money-grubbing, glory-seeking molecular biologists "foof-headed". Heads full of foamy foof.
This is exactly the kind of hyperbole I was talking about. It appears that you believe that 100% of Federally-funded biomedical research is going into creating potentially-dangerous microbes.
Indeed: It appears that you don't read very well. Unless, of course, you are deliberately misinterpreting my posting.
quote:

Originally posted by Dave W.

Instead, much of it goes into basic disease research (or so it appears thanks to one of Tim's links - and yes, Tim, there are major problems with the pharmaceutical industry as a whole, and yes, the whole comparison to NEOs is worthless, anyway, since biomedical research and NASA put together make up a small fraction of the total Federal budget; claiming we need to fund one or the other is a false dichotomy).
What is worthless -- if not downright dangerous -- is your nearly continuous misinterpretation of my statements. I don't recall ever making any comparison of bioresearch and the need to defend against impactors. Not content to merely misinterpret my comments you also misinterpret the amount of money spent in medical and other biological pursuits, which range over everything from necessitous research into vaccines to frivolous cosmetic surgeries. You also seem to miscount -- assuming tht you count at all: What counts is the money withdrawn from the economy; not whether it is TaxDollars, InsuranceDollars or PrivateDollars pried out of one's nearly empty pocketbook.

Talk to the DrugCompanies, Dave. They [say that they] must have longer patent periods and large consumer-bases or they can't afford to do the research to produce new drugs. And they are likely correct: It is demand by users spending money which drives bioresearch.
quote:

Originally posted by Dave W.
quote:

Originally posted by Sea Sorbust


One mistake in either microbial design and manufacture could easily wipe out most of humanity, saving only isolated pockets such as the Australian "aboriginies" or tightly secluded mountain nations. A single mistake in genetically modifying a food stuff such as soybeans could render that food useless, or even biodamaging, with nearly unimaginable "ripple effects" in systemic food-production.

Yeah, nevermind the fact that the Earth itself is one gigantic incubator, randomly slapping genes together (as it has been for 4 billion years). What next, oh hypoerbolic [sic] one? Are you going to call for Federal funding to put a stop to evolution?
Is it possible for your misleading statements to become any more misleading? And you call me the "hyperbolic" one! You know as well as I that evolutionary processes operate over decades or centuries, if not eons whereas bioresearch makes genetic variations over months or, at most, a few years. Not only that, molecular biologists frequently cross genetic paterns that would be nearly impossible through natural processes. Have you ever seen a Kelp strand mating with a Zebra fish? I doubt that you ever will except on the Science Fiction channel or in a geneticist's laboratory.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
quote:


Originally posted by Sea Sorbust
My objections are the wasting of public and private moneys that could be put to better use.


And my objections are identical to yours.
Aha! I must be doing something wrong.
quote:

Originally posted by Dave W.
quote:


Originally posted by Sea Sorbust
While the longterm goal should be Mars, we luckily have Moon just sitting there begging to be colonized and to house early warning asteroidal/comet hunting telescopes.
And this is more important than, for example, population control because...?
Population control? You can talk about control of the size of our population when we can't even discuss control of the size of our private-owned transportation?
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
quote:


Originally posted by Sea Sorbust
Maybe 20 years ago made sense to ignore Venus but now we know about
"invisible" impactors coming in from Sun...
Do we? Like what? If they're invisible, how do we know anything about them?
As detailed earlier, they come in from the direction of the Sun and are therefore invisible to our telescopes until they pass Earth. Finding them after they have gone by or after they have struck us is worthless: "Too late. Too late. Too late.", to paraphrase a now-dead Army general. Just as Mars would be a good place to hunt and chart asteroids coming in from outward, Venus might be a good place to orbit asteroid-hunting equipage to find and chart those coming in from the Sun's direction.
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.
quote:


Originally posted by Sea Sorbust
...and so called "extremophiles", microbial lifeforms which live under extreme conditions.

"This is the forest primeval...."
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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend

USA
68 Posts

Posted - 12/06/2003 :  09:28:12   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Sea Sorbust a Private Message
By the way: There is an interesting, 2-page story in this week's U.S. News & World Report about an asteroid that crossed Australia and struck off the coast of New Zealand about 500 years ago, leaving a 13-mile wide crater.

The online link to the story is here: A blast from heaven?

The impactor was identified indirectly by a geologist from the University of Wollongong when he noticed large boulders some 400 feet above sea level. The actual crater was found by another geologist, using the indirect evidence as a guide, several years later.

The paper 'zine news story tells all but the pretty map of the impactor's travels over Australia is missing from the online version.

"This is the forest primeval...."
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts

Posted - 12/06/2003 :  11:07:34   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message
Sea Sorbust wrote:
quote:
To quote from Dave W.: "You're an idiot, Renae."
I've never called her an idiot, so to say that's a quote from me is a lie.
quote:
Indeed: It appears that you don't read very well. Unless, of course, you are deliberately misinterpreting my posting.
Please, do tell me how.
quote:
What is worthless -- if not downright dangerous -- is your nearly continuous misinterpretation of my statements. I don't recall ever making any comparison of bioresearch and the need to defend against impactors.
Well, you did write:
quote:
I do not consider defending against the potential loss of millions of American lives [from NEOs] "hyperbole". What I do see is lots of money being made in such fields as BioResearch at the cost of VAST sums of TaxDollars with, at best, marginal returns in terms of lives saved or quality-of-life increased. Give me, if you will, an alternative to "bribery and corruption".
The implication is clear: the bribery and corruption which fund biomedical research is stealing money which could go into NEO searches. You are the one who brought up biomedical funding in this discussion of killer impactors. You have been the one harping (in this thread and elsewhere) about how dangerous biomedical research is. How else am I to interpret your statements within the context in which they were written?
quote:
Not content to merely misinterpret my comments you also misinterpret the amount of money spent in medical and other biological pursuits, which range over everything from necessitous research into vaccines to frivolous cosmetic surgeries. You also seem to miscount -- assuming tht you count at all: What counts is the money withdrawn from the economy; not whether it is TaxDollars, InsuranceDollars or PrivateDollars pried out of one's nearly empty pocketbook.
I can't find anyplace where I've ever specifically talked about the amount of money spent, so I don't see how I've "misrepresented" it at all.
quote:
Talk to the DrugCompanies, Dave. They [say that they] must have longer patent periods and large consumer-bases or they can't afford to do the research to produce new drugs. And they are likely correct: It is demand by users spending money which drives bioresearch.
Yes, and?
quote:
Is it possible for your misleading statements to become any more misleading? And you call me the "hyperbolic" one! You know as well as I that evolutionary processes operate over decades or centuries, if not eons whereas bioresearch makes genetic variations over months or, at most, a few years.
So what? The next deadly microbe could appear from some flock of wild birds tomorrow, and "foof-headed" scientists will have had nothing to do with it. That evolution takes a long time doesn't mean we're safe from naturally-created killer pathogens. Or do you believe that AIDS is an artificially-created virus?
quote:
Not only that, molecular biologists frequently cross genetic paterns that would be nearly impossible through natural processes. Have you ever seen a Kelp strand mating with a Zebra fish? I doubt that you ever will except on the Science Fiction channel or in a geneticist's laboratory.
So what? How many of those crosses are dangerous? Has kelp been crossed with zerba fish?
quote:
Population control? You can talk about control of the size of our population when we can't even discuss control of the size of our private-owned transportation?
So now we should discuss SUVs, and fixing that problem, instead of population control or NEO searching? You're right: spending money on getting consumers to enjoy compact hybrid or hydrogen vehicles would be addressing a problem we might be able to fix, whereas the population and NEOs are largely out of our control. See, we agree again.
quote:
As detailed earlier, they come in from the direction of the Sun and are therefore invisible to our telescopes until they pass Earth.
Ah, then they're not invisible, but instead hidden. Besides, when did you "detail" this earlier? Near the same post in which I allegedly called Renae an idiot?
quote:
Finding them after they have gone by or after they have struck us is worthless: "Too late. Too late. Too late.", to paraphrase a now-dead Army general. Just as Mars would be a good place to hunt and chart asteroids coming in from outward, Venus might be a good place to orbit asteroid-hunting equipage to find and chart those coming in from the Sun's direction.
And tell us what? That we've got a few days to live?

I wrote:
quote:
Snipped the rest.
To which you replied:
quote:
Snipped it? Why? There is no reason to be embarassed that the Soviets continued with their efforts in space. One of the reasons that they continued was to defend against potential impactors. There is reason to be embarassed that we stopped our space efforts, of course.
My snipping the rest, and not responding to it, had nothing to do with being embarrassed about anything. Given this bad assumption and massive misrepresentation of my intent, when you have decried such things in your own post, I present to you this:



And I partially wrote:
quote:
there is absolutely

- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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filthy
SFN Die Hard

USA
14408 Posts

Posted - 12/06/2003 :  11:34:05   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send filthy a Private Message
Not trying to break up this little love-fest, or anything, but for the last, couple of days, I've been hearing rumbles that Smirky is wanting to send men (and, presumably, women) back to the moon. Some of the rumbles are about building a base there that would be a step-off point for Mars. Apparently much of the scientific community has yet to be impressed with the plan, if plan it be.

"Where we'll get the bread to go, ain't nobody knows." Sorry 'bout that, Willy & Merle.

I have a couple of links, but neither is worth posting. Indeed, it has gotten my bullshit dectector, not screaming yet, but awake.

The sad part is that we should have been doing this a couple of decades ago.


"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)

"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres


"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude

Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,

and Crypto-Communist!

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Sea Sorbust
Skeptic Friend

USA
68 Posts

Posted - 12/06/2003 :  12:39:38   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Sea Sorbust a Private Message
In response to Dave W.'s lengthy harangue:

Zebra fish: http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994411

Name calling: By Dave W.: "Hawkins is an idiot." in this thread: http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2385&whichpage=1

On my hypothetical comparison of defence against potential impactors and bioresearch:The only point of comparison that can be squeezed out of my comments is that they both use money.

Dangers of BioResearch: It is true; I am guilty inserting an example vast waste of TaxDollars on projects with very high potential for deadly catastrophe. Yet somebody is putting squeeze on politicians to short-change major defence needs. Considering huge size of money spend on biological stuffs, they are prime candidate. Might also look into Dept. of Defence budget at huge waste in aircraft programs: Aircraft are dead; missles are "future"---starting about 10-20 years ago. Commercial transportation, all subsidized by TaxDollars, died with advent of teleconferencing 7+ years ago. Other examples are available; BioSpending is just one of the biggest of today's economic sinkholes.

Dave's drivel: "I can't find anyplace where I've ever specifically talked about the amount of money spent, so I don't see how I've "misrepresented" it at all."

Dave's comment on TaxLoot:
quote:
Originally posted by Dave W.

Apparently we cannot dispense with the hyperbole, as "boof-headed medicoes" demonstrates quite well. Instead of laying out your case with simple facts, you have instead resorted to an emotional appeal based upon a comparison to another attempt to save lives (those belonging to people who are dying right now, not "potentially" dying, but really and truly dying as I type).

I would actually like to know just how much money is being spent by the government on biomedical research - as compared to the billions of dollars spent every year by pharmaceutical companies themselves - before taking the comparison between government-funded medical research and government-funded NEO searching any further.



Drug companies' example: We probably agree on this one. If you don't get sick you don't have to spend money on treatment. Research on prevention is best place to spend money yet extremely little is done. We crank up the thermostats in summer and winter. We do our best to never challange immune system. We dose ourselves with antibiotics at first sniffle. We drive our cushy cars a short block to store. So we get sick and spend lots of money.

Scary microbes: Naturally evolving nasty microbe unlikely---we've been around for a long time and are still here. Biologists evolve microbes all the time; even biology students evolve microbes. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. And all for the purpose of playing like tots in lab or for profit: bigger house; bigger boat; bigger car.

Invisible NEOs: It was post by walt fristoe on first page:
quote:
Originally posted by walt fristoe

Indeed, and we often don't even detect these things until after they've gone past us, because it comes from the direction of the sun. Which means that something could hit us with absolutely no warning at all!

Scares the bejeezus outta me.



Venus orbit for finding invisible NEOs: If asteroid-hunting telescope finds NEO as it passes Venus' orbit, we should have months, at least, to prepare interceptors. Not days.

On your questionable understanding of human anatomy: Suggest that I am better identified with pot and that you are better identified with kettle.

On bald lies: Not. Was just incomplete reporting.

"This is the forest primeval...."
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