http://www.funadvice.com/my/advice/fleapit en-us Further to arachnid's two fallacies, I would like to add another. One which many believers in evolution seen keen on. This is that acquired characteristics can be passed on. Lamarck thought this was how the giraqffe got its long neck, and from early times researchers have been trying to show it can happen this way. Early last century a midwife toad that had adapted to black feet and then produced offspring with black feet was exhibited. It was later found to be a fake - Junior's feet had been injected with indian ink. Then Lysenko in Russia claimed that pulling leaves off cotton plants led to future plants breeding leafless, a clear advantage. Stalin believed him and Russia nearly starved. It just doesn't happen that way. fleapit Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:25:36 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/a_question_for_evolutionist 405583 OK, go! fleapit Tue, 06 May 2008 08:02:13 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/help_me_390 337115 " animals worship humans because they know that we are greater of all creations". Tell that to the next crocodile [tiger, funellweb spider] you meet! fleapit Tue, 22 Apr 2008 07:34:04 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/a_question_for_evolutionist 320527 negrofosho is close to the edge of it. when these apes moved into a warmer climate they were able to function less well. And any ape that was born with less hair, through some genetic mutation, was better able to survive and had more chance of passing on the mutation. A very slow process but sure. fleapit Thu, 10 Apr 2008 05:15:46 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/a_question_for_evolutionist 305823 pinksand thinks his picture of God creating everything in its more-or-less present form is simple. It is not my field but I read somewhere that there are millions of different species of just bugs, let alone everything else. Why would God bother doing that when all that was needed, much simpler, would be to create one object, so small that it would easily fit under your fingernail, and give it potential. That happened about 13 or 14 billion years ago. In the time that has elapsed it is not difficult to imagine enough growth and change to account for us, and apes, and everything else, given a bit of luck. It is known what the universe looked like one nanosecond after creation; perhaps God knows what it was like before that. But in that nanosecond all the material needed to make life were created. fleapit Wed, 12 Mar 2008 05:11:54 -0700 http://www.funadvice.com/q/a_question_for_evolutionist 260443 Nothing wrong with incest so long as you keep it in the family. I had sexual relations with my first cousin; we were forced into it by our families. After we separated she married a stranger and her children have some genetic deformity. By the way, when I started reading this column I assumed Hermione was a girl. If that is the case I can see no objection whatever, on any grounds. Enjoy, I say. fleapit Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:34:08 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/me_and_my_cousin 247152 White tie and tails. Look at early Fred Astair movies. It used to be considered bad manners to wear a tuxedo if ladies were present, and this is still the case in some circles. The white tie is essential. fleapit Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:49:36 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/what_types_of_outfits_are_more_formal 207045 No fleapit Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:44:05 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/should_i_beat_him_up_please_answer 207040 I don't know, but you could try Googleing googol, for instance. That might lead you to others. By extreme I suppose you mean large. If you were looking for small you could just take minus the largest, or if you meant small in absolute terms then it could be 1 over the largest. But 0 is the smallest absolute number. The largest non-trivial number used in a mathematical proof was once Skewes', but that was overtaken by Graham's number, about which it was said (by Donald Knuth) that if the entire universe were ink there wouldn't be enough to write it down. That is indeed large and I'm certain there'll be an article on the internet about it. fleapit Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:42:14 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/extreme_numbers 207038 Dear harmony, please be honest. You say you are black. Would you kiss a white person? This was the point of my question, way up there: Denzel Washington has at least three times refused to kiss a white actress in a movie. Is that rascist? fleapit Sat, 29 Dec 2007 09:57:27 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/do_they_still_hate_us 170207 Thank you, judymoody100, for thanking me. It is wonderful when you are able to give something that is appreciated. fleapit Mon, 24 Dec 2007 05:13:40 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/what_do_you_do_to_get_the_value_of 166500 The original question was - how do you get the value of pi? There are many ways, but the most efficient uses a formula invented by Machin. Pi = 16 arctan(1/5) - 4 arctan(1/239) If you put his formula into a computer that has trig functions it will produce pi to any accuracy you want, and do it very fast. As an example, in about 1996 I tried this on a computer and it took about 11 hours to find pi to 15000 places of decimals. I did it again a little while ago and it took well under a minute. It would have taken a 19th century person several lifetimes! fleapit Sat, 22 Dec 2007 20:40:16 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/what_do_you_do_to_get_the_value_of 165491 The value of pi given above is wrong. This is correct as far as it goes: pi is 3.1415926535897932384626433832795 22/7 is 3.1428571428571428571428571428571 355/113 is 3.1415929203539823008849557522124 You will notice that this last is very close. This is a very lucky break for people who drive rockets to the moon. fleapit Sat, 22 Dec 2007 03:23:45 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/what_do_you_do_to_get_the_value_of 165002 Don't you think saying 'I think black guys are sexy' is racist? I think most black women I've known are sexy, but then I think most women are sexy (fortunately)! fleapit Sun, 16 Dec 2007 09:12:54 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/do_they_still_hate_us 160586 Hugh7: on Nov 26 you said - fleapit, if you click Refresh instead of Back, you'll see that your message got sent the first time. (Boy, that dog-on-the-toilet video's unfunny after the first time!) Great if I could find Refresh! I seem to remember it used to exist but now with Vista it has sneaked away. All these repetitians are very worrying, but worse. I just got a message that you contributed on Nov 28, but I can't see it. Also my machine now won't send emails though they come in OK. And the dog isn't funny even the first time. fleapit Wed, 28 Nov 2007 06:45:33 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 146309 Aha! If it doesn't flicker in and out of existence then (as I said earlier and you rejected) it is sempiternal, which certainly gets over the problem of what came before. (The Big Bang is not an objection to that - it is merely a singularity; just a communication barrier.) But the other end is a bit worrying, with the universe expanding. That will make space pretty big, eventually. How much simpler to have a god. fleapit Tue, 27 Nov 2007 19:13:06 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 146018 'You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not.' Exactly. And science is the endless search to find out as much as we can about it, little though that may be. 'There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it?' No, that's not it, because until we try, we have no way of knowing what it is we can never know, and even after we've tried, we can't be sure - there may be another way of investigating. I have repeated two chunks because I think I detect a whiff of contradiction. If the truth is objective what does it matter if we don't know it. It wouldn't even matter if we never existed. Or cats. As a matter of fact I agree with Wittgenstein, though he later said that it was what is not in Tractatus that matters most. fleapit Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:15:04 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 145793 If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't) There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it? fleapit Mon, 26 Nov 2007 18:22:27 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 144871 If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't) There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it? fleapit Mon, 26 Nov 2007 03:43:28 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 144220 If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't) There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it? fleapit Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:04:18 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 143766 If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't) There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it? fleapit Sun, 25 Nov 2007 18:03:22 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 143763 If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't) There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it? fleapit Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:56:56 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 143747 If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't) There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it? fleapit Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:56:18 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 143746 If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't) There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it? fleapit Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:55:13 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 143744 If everybody believes the earth is flat then no one will walk to the edge so the effect is exactly the same as if it were flat. If it waddles like a duck and quacks it probably is a duck. You seem to be implying that there is some kind of objective truth out there, that exists whether we know it or not. A bright and shiny (god-created) universe that just keeps on going and always has and always will. That seems a little unlikely but what has my sense of unease to do with reality? Whatever that is. In this system it doesn't matter if we don't open the box to see if Schrodinger's cat is alive or dead because we know that it will defnitely be in one state or the other even if there is no way of knowing which it is. (There is a 50 per cent probability that a particle will delay in the time-span so setting in motion a train of events that will end with the cat's death. Of course this means that there is a 50 per cent probability that it won't) There are certain things that we can never know; but they exist anyway. That's it? In that case how do we know that's it? But then it doesn't matter if we know or not that that's it, because that's it whether we know it or not. Or is it? fleapit Sun, 25 Nov 2007 17:48:40 -0800 http://www.funadvice.com/q/did_humans_evolve_from_ape_or_were 143729