Newsgroup sci.environment 115548

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In article ,
   jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
>Here's another example.
>
>The Mississippi River put 405 million acre-feet of water into the 
Gulf of
>Mexico each year.  Here's the calculation of 
gallons/day/inhabitant.
>
>(/ (/ (* 405.0e6 (/ acre-foot gallon)) 365.0) 260e6)
>1.390e+03, i.e. 1390 gallons/day/inhabitant.
>
>California, the largest agricultural state in terms of value of
>products uses 35 million acre-feet per year.  It is considered a
my software appeared to clip some more here, oops
The water in any river is already used several times over by each 
city and town that is on the river.  They all take water from the 
river and return some of it back.  If you divert the rivers 
somewhere else, how will the cities on the river get their water?  
At any given moment there is only so much fresh water available.  
How many times can wastewater cleaning systems clean up the water 
before it becomes unusable.

In article <5cbrn0$p63@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com>, jwas@ix.netcom.com(jw) wrote:
> In <2t3$ZIAN$H6yEw1v@myatt.demon.co.uk> Mark Myatt
>  writes: 
> >
> >Leonard Evens  writes:
> >
> >>He was wrong,
> >>and they were right, but he was lucky that there was a previously
> >>unknown (except to the Vikings) continent
> >
> >My understanding is that millions of people were living happy and
> >fulfilled lives on this "unknown" continent before either set of
> >European pirates arrived to surprise them with their vicious greed.
> 
> They were doing to each other pretty much what the "pirates" 
> did to them  - with the addition of cannibalism and 
> human sacrifices. 
Innoculating them with smallpox?  Getting the population addicted to
alcohol?  And certainly not all of the natives were doing the things you
mention above.  
> I see no reason to believe that their lives were
> more "fulfilled" before Columbus than after, 
Where do you work?  You may find it hard to imagine a fulfilled life
period.  That seems to be more uncommon than it should be nowadays.  
> or less
> "vicious" than those of the "pirates"; they
> certainly were *different* - and this is just the point.
> For, happy or miserable, vicious or virtuous,
> their lives could proceed
> as they did only as long as they remained *unknown*
> - which is just what Leonard said.
Perhaps "isolated" would be a better choice.
--PKS
-- 
There's neither heaven nor hell
  Save that we grant ourselves.
There's neither fairness nor justice
  Save what we grant each other.
Peter Kwangjun Suk 
Musician, Computer Science Graduate Student
[finger suk@pobox.com for PGP public key]

Robert (Robert@cartel.westfalen.de) wrote:
: mcdermot@ica.net (E. McDermott) wrote:
: >As for population, and Christianity causing poverty, I would suggest
: >you look closer to Europe. War creates poverty. It did in Vietnam,
: >Madagascar, Afghanistan, Angola. Let's eliminate war.
Overpopulation causes poverty AND WAR. Vatican encourages overpopulation 
= they are the FATHERS OF WAR AND DESTRUCTION. 
: Very good points;)
Good for what?
: Greetings from Germany
And from Canada.
Yuri.
-- 
Yuri Kuchinsky          | "Where there is the Tree of Knowledge, there
------------------------| is always Paradise: so say the most ancient 
Toronto ... the Earth	| and the most modern serpents."  F. Nietzsche
    --- my webpage: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3988 ---

"Duane C. Johnson"  wrote:
>a bean wrote:
>> 
>> Mik Clarke  wrote in article
>> <5c2eaq$kve@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>...
>> > In <853677281snz@daflight.demon.co.uk>, Hugh Easton
>>  writes:
>> > >In the early 1980's, a multinational project was set up to collect and
>> > >analyse samples of ice which originally fell as snow up to 160,000 years
>> 
>> > >ago in Antarctica. The objective was to obtain information on past
>> climate
>> > >and on how trace gases, notably carbon dioxide (CO2), might affect
>> climate.
>> > >
>> 
>> Does anybody know how the ice samples were dated?
>
>Basicly carbon bating on the carbon in CO2 gas trapped in the
>samples. Also layers similar in the ice similar to tree rings.
>
>Both methods are used. Carbon dating only works for a few million
>years. Ice is in this range.
"A few million years"?  That's a joke, right?  To my knowledge, carbon
dating is good for less than 50,000 years, better if less than 30,000.
Regards, Harold
----
"I think if we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a 
chance of saving the world ecologically.   I think it's 
possible to have an ecologically sound society under socialism.
I don't think it's possible under capitalism."
     - Judi Barry, Earth First,"Policy Review", Jonathon Adler,
	summer 1992

Jayne Kulikauskas (jayne@mmalt.guild.org) wrote:
: bg364@torfree.net (Yuri Kuchinsky) writes:
: > Friend,
: >
: > All of these issues you raise have been discussed back and forth in these 
: > ngs by Jayne, I, and others. You're not saying anything new here. The 
: > specific discussion between Jayne and I is about something else.
: It may be more accurate to say that there are two discussions, the
: topic Yuri is trying to discuss and the topic that I am trying to
: discuss.  :-)
: Yuri seems interested in talking about alleged Vatican immorality,
: blaming the Vatican for all the problems in the world and calling
: Catholics names.
This is a lie. When did I call Catholics names?
: I have been trying to talk about Yuri's absense of evidence for
: attributing evil motives to the Vatican.  I'm not even trying to
: defend that the Vatican position on family planning is right. 
???
Big surprise...
: I just
: want to point out that it is not motivated by hatred of Nature, desire
: to create hardship for the poor, or a wish to destroy the world.
This is only your assertion. 
: > I would simply like her to reveal her biases in this discussion, and she's 
: > already doing this nicely in another thread she started in reply.
: The "bias" that Yuri keeps trying to establish about me is that I am
: Roman Catholic.
Wrong.
: He claims that this makes me a robot to Vatican
: teaching. I am not, however, a robot. I am capable of independent
: thought. I do not feel that the Vatican is above criticism. There are
: areas in which I disagree with actions and attitudes that I perceive
: in the Vatican.
Care to specify?
: I feel that it is my duty as a loyal Catholic to work
: and pray for renewal and reform of my Church and do my best to do so.
: However, the Vatican teaching on family planning is not one of the
: areas in which I disagree.
She already contradicts herself. She said something else above.
: Yuri is correct that I really do bring a bias to this discussion, but
: it is not as a RC, but as a user of the Ovulation Method.
That's right. She's a member of a tiny cult within the Church known as 
the NFP cult.
: I and my
: husband choose to use this method so obviously I am biased towards it.
: Just because of my personality, I would not be comfortable using an
: artifical method and made the decision to use a natural method even
: before I became a Catholic.  
Translation: she joined the Catholic Church because she's an NFP cultist. 
: Let me reveal my bias. Unlike Yuri, I do not view Nature as something
: "out there" being threatened by the existence of humanity. I view
: myself as part of Nature. I could no more put synthetic hormones into
: my bloodstream than I could dump chemicals into a river.
Trying to change the subject here. Condom use is not putting any
"synthetic hormones into bloodstream". So why do you oppose condom use?
: Of course, this attitude affects how I approach questions of family
: planning. I have no doubts that the Ovulation Method is the best one
: for me,
Cultists never have any doubts...
: so, of course, I take umbrage when Yuri refuses it to take it
: seriously as an option.  Based on my personal experience using this
: method and understanding of Third World conditions,
_Not understanding_ is more like it.
: I think it a
: particularly appropriate method for there.
Absolute stuff and nonsense. NFP is no more appropriate for the 3 world
than for the 1 world. 
: When Yuri claims that the only possible motive for the Vatican to
: promote natural methods is a desire to create overpopulation and its
: ensuing evils, he is talking about a method that I use and am well
: satisfied with.
Stuff and nonsense. I don't care about your method or you, Jayne. I
despise the enemies of the Earth, and you certainly earned a place of
honour among them already by supporting the evils of war and poverty and
the destruction of Nature as you do. 
Pray for your great sins against the Earth and the people.
Yuri.
-- 
Yuri Kuchinsky          | "Where there is the Tree of Knowledge, there
------------------------| is always Paradise: so say the most ancient 
Toronto ... the Earth	| and the most modern serpents."  F. Nietzsche
    --- my webpage: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/3988 ---

Jim Carr wrote:
Jim, people like you scare me very much.  There is always some
"reason" why the inhumanity was committed, the good of the
country, the good of the state, the good of science, or the
good of Jodie Foster.  Just always seems to be a reason for
taking enlist personnel out to a Nevada test site and irradiating
them for some vague "war preparation" testing.  It was no more
of a legitamate usage of military authority than it would have 
been for my CO to order me to jump from the plane with out my
chute, or my boots.  And taking advantage of ignorance is not the
same as informed consent.  You express callousness, arrogance and
contempt, and then you wonder why the public does not trust you
and your pro-nuc club.
>

Mark Friesel  wrote:
>Harold Brashears wrote:
>> 
>> Mark Friesel  wrote:
>> 
>> >Harold Brashears wrote:
>> 
>> >> Regards, Harold
>> >> ----
>> >> "Free enterprise really means rich people get richer.  And they
>> >> have the freedom to exploit and psychologically rape their
>> >> fellow human beings in the process.  Capitalism is destroying
>> >> the earth....Cuba is a wonderful country.  What Castro's done
>> >> is superb."
>> >>         - Helen Caldicott, 1982, Doctors against Health,
>> >>         Petr Beckman, Golem
>> >
>> >
>> >What was Caldicott refering to when she wrote 'What Catro's done is
>> >superb.'?
>> Read the cite.
>Are you saying that you don't know, yet you're quoting anyway?  Or that 
>you do know but don't want to tell?  Posting a quote when you don't know 
>the context is rather foolish.  Knowing the context and not making it 
>evident, when it is not evident to a reader, makes the quote rather 
>pointless.  The result is that you appear foolish or pointless.
You are not going to get me to respond to your idiot trap.  You want
it both ways, you are too lazy to go read it, and when I refuse to
give you the information you accuse me of not knowing.  This is the
"lazy student" attack, and I have seen it a hundred times on the net.
It is always intended from the beginning as a springboard for a
personal attack.  I wondered if it was different in your case.
I will do what you wish when you pay me, not before.  You know I work
for a living and I sell knowledge.  When I give it away it is because
I want to, and not in response to juvenile tricks.  You know how to
reach me with a check when you are interested in something more
substantive than a personal attack.
Regards, Harold
----
"I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord, 
make my enemies ridiculous.  And God granted it."
	--Voltaire, French philosopher, author. Letter, 16 May 1767.

Eric Flesch wrote:
> On Tue, 21 Jan 1997 07:51:14 -0800, Erik Max Francis wrote:
> >Yes.  The question is not whether or life is possible or not, but how
> >common it is -- and, furthermore, how common _intelligent_ life is.  For
> >that science has no answers.
It is as common as grains of sand on the beach. The "association of
worlds" is already in place of which there are many civilizations
already "relocating" about the multiverse (meaning many levels as well
as one Universe). Science is one way to explore the multiverse-one
method. There are many methods-therefore there are many ways to get the
"answers". There is no one THE truth, except that THE truth is the
composition of all truths. Because "All That Is" is all one thing.
> Oh Gawd, yet another misapprehension being bandied about USENET.
> The question of extraterrestrial life is solved with a routine
> mathematical inspection.
It is resolved with simple imagination-if you can imagine it it must be
real on some level-or you could not concieve of it.
>   The key, and all you need to answer the
> question, comes when you look at the age of the galaxy, which is
> about, ummm, 10 BILLION years old.
More like 20 billion.
>  In that time there have been lots
> of stars similar to our Sun, some of which have since passed on.
A few MAYBE, this time frame is very small in the world and lifespan of
a star. Alpha Centaurii is the closest about 26 trillion miles.
> It is often said that people don't understand how long a million years
> is, or ten million years.  This sort of observation usually pertains
> to discussions about evolution, but certainly applies here as well.
"Time" is a matrix, a vibrational signature-just like space and can be
part of an overall time/space equation.
> We are talking about hypothetical civilizations which are BILLIONS of
> years older & more advanced than us.
Civilizations that are BILLIONS of "years" old, are no longer physical
and therefore do not experience time. Therefore there really are not
civilizations (physical anyway) that are billions of years old. There
are just as many more advanced as behind. There are typical time frames
and age frames from which they can spring as physical and evolve BACK to
non-physical.
>  Once the technology for
> near-light travel (or hibernation a la RAMA) is in place,
There really can be no such thing as space "travel", it would be
vibrational frequency relocation. There would be no "moving" through
space as even at the speed of light this would not be practical or
possible. Once it is recognized (as it is beginning to be in physics
now) that metaphysics is not a silly superstition but has some very
fundemental recognitions of how vibrational frequencies operate
(mind/matter mirror) these subjects will blend. Computers will be linked
to the mind and the "pilot" of a craft will be able to "will" his craft
from vibrational frequency to vibrational frequency. Nutrinos are one of
the key understanding to this idea. This is how most aliens traverse the
multiverse at this time. Time and space travel are one thing.
> such a
> civilization could spread throughout the galaxy like yeast in a petrie
> dish.
Spreading is a limited perpective from the lack of understanding of the
holographic nature of the universe. It doesn't have to "spread" to
manifest everywhere.
>  Each new outpost would colonize its environs, etc.  A galaxy
> like ours would be filled up in a few million years with near-light
> travel, in a few hundred million years with the hibernation approach.
Spiritual awareness and space travel are linked. Civilizations are
already spread across everywhere. As our ego as a civilization decreases
we percieve more of our inner selves (hence outer space) it is simple
metaphysical mechanics.
> After that, ships could be sent out to neighboring galaxies -- again,
> near-light travel would mean that not much time would pass for the
> passengers, or if hibernating, no time-passage would be noticed.  Such
> interstellar travel is comfortable enough for the passengers.
Not really necessary, mind and matter are one thing, the power of mind
creates it and can "relocate it" as well.
> Given the fact that other civilizations would have had BILLIONS of
> years of head start on us, it beggars belief that the fertile
> oxygen-rich Earth would have been available for colonisation for
> 500-MILLION years, and that no super-advanced civilization came to
> take it.
How do you think humans got here? You don't believe that 3 million year
old hominid crap do you? The dinosaurs were here unchanged virtually for
375 million years and we evolved our large brains with venous radiators
in 3 million? Give me a break. Anyway like I said there really is no
reason to remain physical as a race for such long periods.
>  If any such civilization had been around within a radius of
> HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS of light-years -- well, with a BILLION years
> head-start they would've made it here.  How much of the petrie dish
> escapes the yeast?.
Irrelevant. The entire multiverse has the potential to manifest
everything everywhere all at once because of its holographic nature.
When we fully understand space/time we will simply relocate and pop from
"here" to "there" insantaneously-no need for "travel". Haven't you ever
seen UFOs do this?
> They never came.  They're not there.  You people who are looking for
> other civilizations, and dreaming of other civilizations -- you are
> wasting your time.
Wow, pretty confident aren't you? Sounds kind of like the way they used
to talk of the day we would fly. If you told a 17th century person that
I would be able to post this letter and talk to people all over the
world through a collection of electrical impulses, and then fly across
the ocean at 500 or more miles an hour and visit people in Europe-well
you get the picture. I would have been burned as a warlock or flogged
until the demons came out of me:-))
> Wake up from your dreams and attend to the needs of planet Earth --
> it's the Noah's Ark of the universe.
You need to wake up your consciousness to a greater reality (you are
still asleep). Anyone who thinks that the Earth is the center of life
and activity in the multiverse, is not only arrogant-but suffering
delusions of granduer. Physical reality is the effect of mind in
matter-it is a set of props-an arrangement of the psyche externalized.
-- 
"Space has no objective reality except as an order or arrangement of the
objects we perceive in it, and time has no independent existence apart
from the order of events by which we measure it." Lincoln Barnett "The
Universe and Dr. Einstein"
-- 
Edmond H. Wollmann P.M.A.F.A.                       
© 1996 Astrological Consulting/Altair Publications
http://home.aol.com/ewollmann
PO Box 221000 San Diego, CA. 92192-1000
(619)453-2342  e-mail wollmann@mail.sdsu.edu

In article <32E955FF.1E6A@ilhawaii.net>, jhanson@ilhawaii.net wrote:
> Roy C. Dudgeon wrote:
> 
> >    The problem with Hardin is that he seems to assume that such an
> > attitude is equivalent with human nature, which it is not.
> 
> Yes it is.  We evolved to exploit anything and everything
> except family members  -- and then deny it.
   Hey Jay,
   Sorry that I haven't taken the time to read your entire article before
replying, but I've saved it to be read later. A few comments off the cuff,
though...
   Personally, (speaking as an anthropologist) I feel that individualism
is far from equivalent with human nature, in that many aboriginal peoples
have always espoused a very egalitarian philosophy, based upon mutual
sharing and reciprocity, and have lived it as well.
   To my mind, insisting that individualism is equivalent to human nature
is not only untrue, but is a rather convenient way of suggesting that the
motivations which underlie capitalism are an inevitability.
   Obviously (and I have been hanging in these news groups for a couple
years), this is not a position which Jay Hanson would like to advocate.
   Please correct me if I am wrong.
   Besides, Hardin's views are so awfully pessimistic, and what the
ecology movement needs is *HOPE*...
------------------------------Regards--------------------------------
Roy C. Dudgeon 
---------------------------------------------------------------------
  A THING IS RIGHT WHEN IT TENDS TO PRESERVE THE INTEGRITY, STABILITY
AND BEAUTY OF THE BIOTIC COMMUNITY.  IT IS WRONG WHEN IT TENDS OTHER-
WISE.
                                --ALDO LEOPOLD, "THE LAND ETHIC".                  ---------------------------------------------------------------------

John McCarthy wrote:
> 
> _Climbing Mount Improbable_ by Richard Dawkins offers models of how
> life developed and evolved.
> 
> It is naive to compute the probability that a long DNA sequence arose
> as the result of independent events giving rise to each member of the
> sequence.  What arose early made subsequent evolution more probable.
> Moreover, the main mechanisms that amplified evolution are yet to be
> discovered.
> 
> Dawkins has a particularly good chapter relevant to the evolution of
> the eye.  He points out that many "partial eyes" exist in nature.
> --
> John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
> http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
> He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
I am happy for once to be on the same side of a question as John
McCarthy.   I also found Dawkins book quite interesting.  (I think his
earlier book `The Blind Watchmaker' went over similar ground.)  Dawkins
in Climbing Mount Improbable suggests that the original replicators were
unlikely to have been based on DNA and that DNA resulted from
evolution.  Also, although one can argue that various events may be
unlikely, if we have evidence that they occurred, the degree of
improbability is not too relevant.  Unlikely things do on occasion
occur.   More to the point, John is absoutely right in that attempts to
calculate the probabilities of such things is a bit silly since we can't
really construct a rigorous mathematical model which we can be confident
mirrors reality in which to make the probabilistic calculations.
-- 
Leonard Evens       len@math.nwu.edu      491-5537
Department of Mathematics, Norwthwestern University
Evanston Illinois

Jim Carr wrote:
> 
> Jim Carr wrote:
> |
> |   I personally don't see a connection between the civilians who still
> |   die due to military operations, primarily plane crashes, and the
> |   intentional murder of a group of innocent people by the state.
> |
> |   What defense do you use, personally, to justify the deaths that
> |   result because you use electricity?  You know they are going to
> |   happen, but you use it anyway.  Does this make you evil?
> 
I think the whole issue revolves around whether soldiers and civilians 
voluntarily put themselves at risk.  Soldiers put themselves at risk by 
the nature of their job - they know they must obey orders and are tools 
of the state, although even for sodiers there are bounds which the state 
has no right to cross - gratuitous and unnecessary risk for example.  
Civilians are a different matter entirely.  If the state puts civilians 
at risk without their consent, the individuals in government who make 
the decision to do so must be equally at risk of suffering the 
repurcussions from their decision - potentially sacrificing themselves 
or their careers for the good of their country.
Mark Friesel

>It is a human contrived number that means absolutely nothing.  In fact, 
>computers will crash on 1/1/2000, which IS a significant event.  I 
>believe he feels that the millenium will occur 2000 years after 
>the year 1/1/0000, the LOGICAL beginning of our calendar.
Dan,
I am sorry there is no year 0000. the years go like this 4bc, 3bc, 2bc, 1bc, 
1ad, 2ad, 3ad, etc. So your argument that 1/1/2000 is 2000 years after the 
year zero is correct if there is a year zero. But there is not, so since we 
start counting from 1/1/1 AD the new millennium is 1/1/2001, period. But you 
are right about one thing....it doesn't matter one bit....now back to 
extraterrestrial life.....

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Harold Brashears wrote:
> 
MF said:
> 
> >Are you saying that you don't know, yet you're quoting anyway?  Or that
> >you do know but don't want to tell?  Posting a quote when you don't know
> >the context is rather foolish.  Knowing the context and not making it
> >evident, when it is not evident to a reader, makes the quote rather
> >pointless.  The result is that you appear foolish or pointless.
> 
HB:
> You are not going to get me to respond to your idiot trap. 
MF:
This is silly.  First, you've just responded.  Secondly, if it's a trap 
then it's your trap, not mine, and you walked right into it.
HB:
> You want
> it both ways, you are too lazy to go read it, and when I refuse to
> give you the information you accuse me of not knowing.  This is the
> "lazy student" attack, and I have seen it a hundred times on the net.
> It is always intended from the beginning as a springboard for a
> personal attack.  I wondered if it was different in your case.
MF:
If you're unable to hold an adult conversation, then I hardly think you 
should blame me.  If your posts consistently attack people, then you 
should hardly be surprised when some of them backfire.  The only one I 
see engaging in personal attacks is you, which is rather surprising 
after all of the complaining you do about it.  You've already accused me 
of being lazy, of trying to trap you, and of immaturity when what I did 
was point out that it's foolish to quote an author if you don't know the 
context of the quote, and if you do but won't say then you have no 
desire to be clear and it's pointless to quote.  I can engage in 
personal attacks too, but I think it's rather dull and not very 
constructive.
HB:
> 
> I will do what you wish when you pay me, not before.  You know I work
> for a living and I sell knowledge.  When I give it away it is because
> I want to, and not in response to juvenile tricks.  You know how to
> reach me with a check when you are interested in something more
> substantive than a personal attack.
> 
> Regards, Harold
> ----
> "I have only ever made one prayer to God, a very short one: "O Lord,
> make my enemies ridiculous.  And God granted it."
MF:
In your case this is absolutely true.  You just don't realize who your 
enemy is.
Mark Friesel

jw wrote:
> 
> In <32E95C12.58A9@wired2.net> Tim Worstall  writes:
> [...]
> >Use Occam's razor...we *know* life exists here ans we don't know
> whether
> >it *arose* here. But since we have no direct eveidence that it exists
> >elsewhere, the simplest solution that explains all the facts so far
> >uncovered is that it exists and arose here. All else is se=peculation
> in
> >the absence of evidence one way or the other.
> 
> No, I disagree that this is the simplest solution.
> 
> It is chosen, not by Occam's razor, but by
> another arbitrary principle: _whatever *is*
> in a spot *arose* in that spot, unless proved otherwise_:
> a *presumption of immobility*.
> This is not Occam, nor is it common sense.
> 
> For example, human beings live in Europe; it follows
> that they evolved *somewhere*; the supposition
> that they evolved in Europe was never the simplest
> or most probable - even *before* evidence of African
> origin was found. Why? Because preconditions in Europe
> were not right. As for preconditions for life's
> origin, we simply do not know them.
Your general point has some validity but you push it too far.  If we do
in fact have evidence that something could not have arisen in situ, then
we would have to look for evidence that it arose elsewhere.  A good
example would be the exisence of humans in the new World.   Given no
other information, it would be reasonable to assume it arose here, which
is what some Native American groups still insist.   But given all we do
know about human ancestry and fossil remains, we can reject that
hypothesis.  Your example about Europe is not quite so good, however.  
Some paleontologists still argue in fact that Homo Sapiens arose
independently in different parts of the world from existing members of
the genus Homo, although everyone agrees that the genus originated in
Africa.   I think those aguing that our species also arose in Africa
have the stronger arguments, but the last I heard, the matter was not
yet completely settled.
> We have no direct evidence that life exists elsewhere,
> true - but we also have no evidence of *any* kind that
> it *could* have arisen here.
> 
> If we knew of a mechanism by which it *would* have
> arisen here, *then* this would be the simplest
> solution, in a sense: it would save mental work.
> Sticking with a sufficient explanation is one form of
> Occam's razor (though not Occam's form). Even then
> alternative explanations *might* be true and *ought*
> to be considered.
> 
> But we do *not* know of such a mechanism; "arose here"
> is no explanation at all, but an arbitrary guess:
> "arose here *somehow*".
> 
> "Arose *somewhere somehow*" is at least
> more likely  because of the greater varity of conditions.
Really all we can say is that we know very little about the matter.
One can argue either way.  On the one hand the earliest evidence of life
on our planet comes only (on a geological time scale) shortly after it
was possible, so one can argue there wasn't time for life to evolve.
One has to be careful however about such arguments.  Remember that in
the 19th century, the physicist, Lord Kelvin, proved that the Sun could
be at most 10 million years old or so, which cast doubt on whether or
not there was sufficient time for evolution.  He was of course wrong
because he didn't know about radioactivity.  Perhaps there is something
about the origin of life which we don't know which if we did would make
it reasonable that early forms could develop fairly rapidly.  On the
other hand, it is possible that life arose elsewhere and was somehow
transported here.  but then one ask where it came from and how it got
here and a lot of other questions, none of which can go beyond mere
speculation.
-- 
Leonard Evens       len@math.nwu.edu      491-5537
Department of Mathematics, Norwthwestern University
Evanston Illinois

Roy C. Dudgeon wrote:
>    To my mind, insisting that individualism is equivalent to human nature
> is not only untrue, but is a rather convenient way of suggesting that the
> motivations which underlie capitalism are an inevitability.
>    Obviously (and I have been hanging in these news groups for a couple
> years), this is not a position which Jay Hanson would like to advocate.
>    Please correct me if I am wrong.
I am not sure we disagree.  What I said was, humans posses an innate
propensity to exploit* everything and anything except family members. 
But humans can and do form social groups that can overcome these
evolutionary traits to a certain extent.
Hardin has shown that the humans, under conditions of freedom, will
ultimately destroy themselves.  The Tragedy of the Commons is that
under freedom, any one human can force destruction of the commons.
Although Hardin describes exploitation in an unregulated public
pasture, the principle applies to the entire human society.  In other
words, virtually everything that humans can reach (including other
humans) is exploited to the detriment of other humans.
Hardin does offer a solution: Authority.
I agree, only some sort of worldwide authority can save us now.
Jay
* Exploit: To employ to the greatest possible advantage.

"Uncle Al" Schwartz wrote:

> 
> Never argue with a fool - casual passersby cannot tell the difference.
> However, if it floats your boat, THE EARTH IS IN THE GRIP OF A MASSIVE
> COOLING TREND WHICH WILL IRREVOCABLY RESULT IN ANOTHER ICE AGE:
> 
>    "Newsweek,"  28 April 1975, Peter Gwynne
>    "International Wildlife," July 1975, Nigel Calder
>    "The Cooling," 1976, Lowell Ponte
>    "Global Ecology Readings Towards a Rational Stretegy for Man, 1971,
> Reid Bryson
>    "Science," 09 July 1971, Dr. SI Rasool and Dr. SH Schneider.
> 
The issue of an eventual return to a glacial period and a short-term
transformation of the earth's climate by CO2 are 2 different matters
entirely, and happen over different time scales. 
> The most sophisticated current climate models are incapable of
> forecasting the weather two weeks in advance, much less 50 years into
> the future.  
You are confusing exact predictions with alterations of trends and
averages. Global warming predicts certain average quantities and
occurence rates to change, which is capable of being predicted. It does
not make predictions about precice positions of weather systems, which
remains in the realm of the unknowable beyond a few days. It is the same
difference between the daily forecast in the paper (a few days ahead),
and the 30-day outlook, which looks at the predicted average quantities
for the next month.
> Perhaps this is because nobody knows anything about clouds,
> and there are land masses and open sea to complicate smooth sphere
> models - polar caps, jet streams, Third World throwbacks burning their
> forests into ashes and their land into laterite, volcanoes,
> Environmentalist landfills belching methane and carbon dioxide...  All
> together now:  IT NEEDS MORE RESEARCH.
> In the meanwhile, we will all panic to up the ante for grants.
> 
"Nobody knows anything". If that were the case, atmospheric science
would not exist. The research projects churned out by various agencies
over the years, notably the U.N. panel on climate change, should be more
than convincong.
> Even a cursory look at climate data shows that if anything, days have
> not gotten warmer, nights (when it gets colder) have gotten warmer.  A
> leveling of temperature extremes from the bottom up moves the mean
> temperature without increasing any maximum.  THE SKY IS FALLING!
> MINI-ICE AGE!  GREEN HOUSE EFFECT!  If the treeline is moving north, it
> is sopping up extravagant tonnages of CO2 (photosynthesis, you know -
> palstic doesn't grow on trees) and keeping it sequestered for
> centuries.  Le Chatelier has the last laugh.
> 
Global warming will result in a reduction of forest area as forest zones
are left behind faster than their ability to migrate, and because of
other habitat limitations in their new would-be climate zones. You
really should do your reading before unilaterally overruling everybody
else.
> The Russian economy has utterly collapsed, and continues to contract
> each year.  Italy has a perpetual crisis of governent corruption and
> stagnation.  The whole of Hispanic America is a midden of Byzantine
> Catholic degeneration.  The British royal house has discovered a
> downside to chronic inbreeding.  If all these social, economic,
> political, and agricultural travesties show no sign of serious internal
> upset, I fail to see how another 100 ppm of CO2 in the air will move a
> whole planet which has had 5 billion years to work out dynamic
> equilibrium and homeostasis.  Adding another jigger of Inda Ink to a
> glass half-filled with India ink leaves it just as black.
> 
The theory is that the earth's homeostasis will be transformed to a  new
equilibrium by a sudden increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, and this
transition will be disruptive to the biosphere and to human society,
disruptions that could have serious consequences such as loss of
agricultural productivity, flooding of coastal areas, decline in
forests, rearrangement of rainfall, and spread of tropical disesase to
temperate areas.

Harold Brashears wrote:
> 
......
> 
> "A few million years"?  That's a joke, right?  To my knowledge, carbon
> dating is good for less than 50,000 years, better if less than 30,000.
> 
> Regards, Harold
> ----
> "I think if we don't overthrow capitalism, we don't have a
> chance of saving the world ecologically.   I think it's
> possible to have an ecologically sound society under socialism.
> I don't think it's possible under capitalism."
>      - Judi Barry, Earth First,"Policy Review", Jonathon Adler,
>         summer 1992
MF:
.... and you still haven't responded to Oti's little challenge, although 
the only penalty for losing is a public haiku - no big deal.  I've saved 
it and can repost if you reconsider.
Mark Friesel

Ads have begun to appear in high-tech catalog magazines for "electronic 
anti-bacterial laundry discs" which (allegedly) release ionized O2 & 
electromagnetic waves to clean clothes.  Sounds kinda weird.  Anybody 
have any experience with these discs?  Do they really work to lighten 
the dirt load -- or is the only thing they lighten your wallet?  :)
Pls include email reply with posts...
-- 
--TAGLINE FOLLOWS
/--------------------------------------------------------------------\
|   A man said to the Universe: "Sir, I exist!"                      |
|   "However," replied the Universe,                                 |
|   "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."          |
|                                -- Stephen Crane                    |
\--------------------------------------------------------------------/
Visit the W3MAGIC page for info on how to make dynamic/
browser-adaptable WWW pages:
  http://www.clark.net/pub/alweiner/cgi-bin/homepage.cgi?w3magic

Gregory Greenman  writes:
>
>In a subcritical system, a self sustained chain reaction is 
>physically impossible; the "nuclear fire" will NOT "ignite",
>if you will. Therefore, it does NOT RELEASE ENERGY!!  
 Since you are posting from LLNL, I will mention one example: 
 the first thermonuclear device designed by Teller at LLNL. 
 ;-)
 I know it was technically a fizzle that did release energy, but I 
 could not resist, given all that "father of the H-bomb" stuff.
-- 
 James A. Carr        |  "They invented band!"  
    http://www.scri.fsu.edu/~jac/       |  Spectator at 1997 inaugural parade
 Supercomputer Computations Res. Inst.  |  commenting on the Macarena done by
 Florida State, Tallahassee FL 32306    |  the Florida A&M; Marching 100  

On Sat, 25 Jan 1997 02:59:45 -0800, Macarthur Drake wrote:
>>Europeans in 1491 could have used this argument to explain why the can't be a 
>>continent between Europe and India. 
Entirely untrue, as half of the Earth was already known.  The best
that the Europeans could have said was that the other half of the
world was not more advanced than they were -- which was true, of
course.
In the cosmological argument, we have untold *trillions* of candidate
star systems which could have yielded older high-technology
civilizations which would have reached here by now.
>>who is to say that a plant planet doesn't exist out  there...
Great, you can have a billion plant planets, a trillion bacteria
planets, and still have a few left over which will come and take over
the Earth 100,000,000 years ago.  Aw shucks, where are they?
>>Besides, if there were aliens (I hate to use this word, because I don't want 
>>this discussion to focus on them or UFOs) out there exploring the 
>>universe...surely they would find more interesting places to spend their time 
>>than at this little blue world.
Out of 1,000,000 such civilizations, some would be too bored, others
would be too busy destroying themselves, others took a wrong turn at
the horsehead nebula, and that still leaves 10,000 who will make their
way here.  Give it up.
>>	Ok, my laps into fantasy is based on an argument that a young 
>>astronomer made in the 1960's...guess who....yeap..Carl Sagan.
Oh YECCH!  Carl Soakhead, the destroyer of young intellects.  My
advice is, steer clear of everything he's ever said, to the extent
that you should do the exact opposite of everything on which he ever
gave an opinion.  Do this, and you will be right.   :-)
Eric
___________________________________________
"The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose,
 but queerer than we *can* suppose."  -- J. Haldane

On Sat, 25 Jan 1997 05:11:13 -0800, Macarthur Drake wrote:
>Now that is untrue. All of the world was know, by the people who lived 
>there. You show your lack of insight, by stating that only half of the 
>world was known...surely the native Americans knew they existed. 
You are switching topics.  Clarity of thought is required for any
sensible discussion.
> So you are wrong about you conclusions about 
>European technology in 1491... the Americans could have used you faulty logic 
>to conclude in 1477 that no other more advance race exists...and they 
>would have been incorrect.  So either way, which ever was more advanced, 
>with your logic someone would have been wrong.
You've missed your own point that in 1491 the Europeans were preparing
to sail to the other hemisphere (even if they were confused about it).
The Americans were doing no such thing.  Therefore the Europeans could
use this reasoning, but the Americans could not.
>	Again, I don’t want to follow that line of argument (UFOs and 
>aliens), but you keep saying that they would be here by now. Maybe THEY 
>HAVE BEEN. 
You have missed the essential point that if they colonized the Earth
100,000,000 years ago, we would not be here now.   By virtue of our
presence, we are assured of their absence.
>a summary of the weak points of your argument goes like this, I want to 
>again stress that I don’t necessarily believe in visiting Ets, this is 
>just to prove a point....
>
>	your weak assumptions:
>
>1.  alien life is like us and wants to contact us
I have not said that, nor implied it, nor thought it.
>2.  They have not or don’t continue to contact us.
Right, because they don't exist.
>3. We are not the product of an advanced race that has already spread 
>life throughout the galaxy
We'd be one sad backwater if we were.
>3. all life is like us, discounting other species. Just because there are 
>just Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes here doesn’t mean that it has to be that 
>way everywhere.
I suggest you learn to count to four.
Eric
___________________________________________
"The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose,
 but queerer than we *can* suppose."  -- J. Haldane

In <5cd2qa$jqr@reader1.reader.news.ozemail.net> claw@ozemail.com.au
(Chris Lawson) writes: 
>
>nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) wrote:
>
>[snip]
>
>>Yes, it is inherent in the word "arose". Yes, it is generally
believed
>>that life *evolved* on Earth from the first prokaryotes.  But those
>>first prokaryotes were already very much alive, and the issue
>>here is whether they *arose* on Earth, i.e. emerged from a prebiotic
>>soup here rather than being transported here from elsewhere to take
>>advantage of our rich prebiotic soup.  There is PLENTY of reason
>>for taking this possibility seriously, given our current ignorance
>>of how the protein synthesis mechanism could possibly have arisen
>>in a few million years
>But not too seriously. Sure, we don't know much about the prebiotic
>conditions on Earth, but we know even less about the prebiotic
>conditions of other planets. Proposition Earth sure has its problems,
>but Proposition Elsewhere has *exactly* the same difficulty explaining
>how life arose from prebiotic material
Same difficulty, but *vastly* diminished.
First, the galaxy is a much greater greater lab than
one planet, second, it has a far greater variety of conditions -
and third, there are billions, not millions, of  years for
the experiment. 
Multiply the three, and the probability of life emergence
(by some still-unknown mechanism) increases by a factor of 
trillions or more...
> *plus* problems explaining how it got to Earth intact.
Yes, *that* difficulty is added. We have to offset the one 
with the other. However, even RNA shredded by cosmic
rays might perhaps still have enough good parts in it to
start evolution of life - if the organism is sufficiently
primitive so as not to require too much intact genetic
material.  
In any case, there seems to be little difficulty
in assuming a transference of life from Mars to Earth.
And that alone would alleviate the problem of origins: 
we know that life appeared too suddenly on Earth, 
but we do *not* know the same about Mars. It might have 
arisen slowly there, then migrated to Earth when
Earth was ripe. 
Well, soon, maybe in a decade or two, we may know
much more. Has there been no life on Mars ever? Then the 
above guess is out. Was it unrelated to life
on Terra? Ditto. 
But if it existed and *was* genetically related, that
will be a total confirmation. I'd bet 3:2 that there was
(and probably still is) life on Mars, and that it *is*
genetically related to terrestrial life. That would not
prove panspermia yet - just transference within
one solar system.
If so, then Mars's geological and paleontological
timetable becomes crucial: did the earliest life
there appear much later than the planet cooled?
Then it was probably indigenous on Mars, Terra got it
from Mars, and all the bets on the rest of the
Galaxy are still out. Or did it appear on Mars
(like here) as soon as it could survive? Then both
planets got it from a third place, and panspermia
becomes the favorite hypothesis...
>So you've swapped one difficulty for two. 
But perhaps two *lesser* ones (see above)...
>(This is similar logic to
>that used by religious folk who insist that the Universe must
>logically have a Creator, but don't see that their logic must apply
>then to the hypothetical Creator itself.)
That depends on *why* these people insist that the 
universe must have a creator; the same reasons 
may or may not apply to the creator himself. 
There actually exist many different variants of 
that religious  argument...
The panspermia hypothesis *does* leave the question
of life's ultimate origin unanswered. 
But it makes a step towards answering it by changing 
the odds. And it does answer the other question
of why life appeared so *fast* on this planet.
These are two arguments in its favor.
They are not decisive, but they exist.

It is interesting to read this discussion, so I chose blindly
(read:randomly) to join it.
	First of all, I see that the main stream of Western scientist to go
away any relationship between science and religion. So, the existence of
God may out of their mind. If we think a litte bit,i.e., If you see this
monitor, you 100% agree with me that somebody else built this monitor.
Look around you, is there anything exist that is not made by somebody
else? 
So,How about us? about this earth, solar system, the universe? By
induction, all of them were made by somebody else. You know the answer,I
hope. Say, this creator is God. So, He or She would not make this
wonderfull universe unpurposely and uninhabitatly. Since the universe is
very very big, there is a big chance of the existence of other living
things on other planets outside of our solar system. Even, we still
curious about that posibility on Mars.  
	That's my comment. I am a statistician,who start to learn economics.
Peter Nyikos wrote:
> 
> CC: Drake, because I've joined this thread quite late.
> 
> rdadams@access1.digex.net (Dick Adams) writes:
> 
> >Macarthur Drake  wrote:
> >> This messege is to provoke a serious scientific debate.
> 
> >> I am an engineer, no biologist, astronomer or statictician or anything,
> >> but something puzzles me. I am sure you are aware of the Late Dr.
> >> Sagan's quote  " extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof "
> >> with regards to extraterrestrial life, UFOs etc.  I have also heard
> >> people say that the discovery of life on another world would be the
> >> greatest discovery in human history.
> 
> >> I beg to differ with both of these ridiculus statments.
> >> [snip]
> 
> >> I would appriciate any math or stats expert to comment on the
> >> chances that we are alone in the entire universe. I bet that s/he'd
> >> say that it is statistically impossible for us to be alone, so what's
> >> the big deal we know that life is there, just a matter of time 'til
> >> we find it....or them us!
> 
> "Statistically impossible" is either a redundancy or an oxymoron
> and needs to be defined carefully before it can be commented on.
> 
> As a mathematician with a wife who worked eight years in biochemistry,
> I would add that we just know too little about the probability of
> life having arisen spontaneously on earth to be able to
> estimate the chances that we are alone in the universe.
> your question.  Nobel Laureate Francis Crick has written at length
> of the dearth of hard data along these lines in _Life Itself_.
> Check it out--you will be fascinated and intrigued by his theory
> of directed panspermy.
> 
> Richard Dawkins has written at length about the odds and how little
> we know about them in _The Blind Watchmaker_, but he is a far
> less logical person than Crick and suffers a disastrous lapse
> in logic when he claims that if life arose only once in the
> universe, it had to be on earth.  Had he said "intelligent life"
> instead of just "life" he would have been on firmer ground,
> but as it is he seems blissfully unaware of Crick's book or
> theory.
> 
> >> [snp - again]
> 
> >Extraordinary claims DO REQUIRE extraordinary proof.
> 
> What makes the two claims above extraordinary is their specificity.
> Most scientists would not call the following claim extraordinary:
> 
> >Life elsewhere in the universe is probable;
> 
> Only a claim as unequivocal as the ones listed by Sagan
> is extraordinary.  Drake's claim above falls into that category.
> 
> > finding it may well
> >be the greatest discovery ever made up to that time.
> 
> Now THAT's a non-extraordinary claim!  ;-)
> 
> Peter Nyikos                      -- standard disclaimer --
> Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
> University of South Carolina
> Columbia,  SC  29208

In  suk@pobox.com (Peter Kwangjun
Suk) writes: 
>
>In article <5cbrn0$p63@dfw-ixnews9.ix.netcom.com>,
jwas@ix.netcom.com(jw) wrote:
>
>> In <2t3$ZIAN$H6yEw1v@myatt.demon.co.uk> Mark Myatt
>>  writes: 
[...]
>> >My understanding is that millions of people were living happy and
>> >fulfilled lives on this "unknown" continent before either set of
>> >European pirates arrived to surprise them with their vicious greed.
>> 
>> They were doing to each other pretty much what the "pirates" 
>> did to them  - with the addition of cannibalism and 
>> human sacrifices. 
>
>Innoculating them with smallpox?  Getting the population addicted to
>alcohol?
No. They also did not trample each other with horses
 -  they lacked the horses. 
These are technical details: people did what they
could with the means at hand. 
I meant actions like invasion, subjugation, massacre, 
exploitation, enslavement, forcible assimilation and 
indoctrination. Natives did it to natives, Europeans 
did it to natives. There was no invasion of paradise
by devils, just a sudden contact of imperfect civilizations -
one of which was far more advanced and so won easily. 
Just history in action. 
>  And certainly not all of the natives were doing the things you
>mention above.  
Only the winners did...
>> I see no reason to believe that their lives were
>> more "fulfilled" before Columbus than after, 
>[...]  a fulfilled life [...]
>That seems to be more uncommon than it should be nowadays.  
More uncommon than it *should* be - oh, of course.
Who could doubt that.
"Nowadays", however,  has a wrong implication here.
It has never been better! If you imagine that it has -
*that*, too, is common to all ages.
||"Every age has disliked its own modernity and each
||age has preferred those which have preceded it"
||(Walter Map, 12th century. Quoted in:
||Jacques Le Goff, _Medieval Civilization_).
>> [...] happy or miserable, vicious or virtuous,
>> their lives could proceed
>> as they did only as long as they remained *unknown*
>> - which is just what Leonard said.
>
>Perhaps "isolated" would be a better choice.
It would be less precise: they were effectively isolated, 
*not* by the ocean or the mountains, but exactly by 
being *unknown*.

Tim Worstall wrote:
> Use Occam's razor...we *know* life exists here ans we don't know whether
> it *arose* here. But since we have no direct eveidence that it exists
> elsewhere, the simplest solution that explains all the facts so far
> uncovered is that it exists and arose here. All else is se=peculation in
> the absence of evidence one way or the other.
Correct.
That isn't to say panspermia isn't an interesting and intriguing idea.  But
there are problems with it.
> ( They also atate
> that the population of the universe is zero. Infinite number of planets,
> but we know some have no population. Ifinity multiplied or divided by
> any other number os zero. Thus an infinite universe with one uninhabited
> planet has a population of zero.)
The last sentence is true; the second-to-last sentence is not.  You'll have
a population density in an infinite universe of zero only if the population
is zero (trivial case) or _finite_.  If the population is infinite, then
you can have finite (and nonzero) population densities.
Besides, Adams got it wrong from the start.  "Population" doesn't mean
"population density."  He switched one for the other so he could make his
little (and I do mean little) joke.
-- 
        Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE; / email:  max@alcyone.com
                      Alcyone Systems /   web:  http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 San Jose, California, United States /  icbm:  37 20 07 N  121 53 38 W
                                    \
           "Gods are born and die, / but the atom endures."
                                  / (Alexander Chase)

Elliott Oti wrote:
> What I find most intriguing about the
> pro-paranormal/UFO/There-Are-Mysteries
> types is the firm held belief that scientists are stereotypical people
> with an inborn hate of all matters paranormal, who actively suppress
> research into the paranormal.
> The classic Great Cover Up effect. Every kook who thinks he can disprove
> Einstein's
> relativity theory, or build a perpetual motion machine, thinks there's a
> Big Conspiracy in the scientific world, when scientists look at his
> scribbles
> and laugh at its naivete. (They also have a strong tendency to compare
> themselves to Galileo, Giordano Bruno etc).
Right.  A persecution complex is a very common symptom of crankism.
> There are always people who swear they were kidnapped and
> raped by aliens, that they had a strange object implanted in their necks
> (which is always being "analysed by a technician, who would rather remain
> anonymous").
Or is extracted and is demonstrated to be a piece of broken glass.  I
actually saw a testimonal on some UFO program from someone who said that
aliens had implanted something in his leg.  He had it extracted and
analyzed, and it had the composition (and appearance) of broken glass.  He
then had it "analyzed" by a second (and of course undisclosed) party who
found all sorts of rare elements.  Sure, I buy that.
-- 
        Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE; / email:  max@alcyone.com
                      Alcyone Systems /   web:  http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 San Jose, California, United States /  icbm:  37 20 07 N  121 53 38 W
                                    \
           "Gods are born and die, / but the atom endures."
                                  / (Alexander Chase)

In article <5cdol4$mer@scream.ing.com> kerry@mtn.org (kerry lund) writes:
 > 
 > In article ,
 >    jmc@Steam.stanford.edu (John McCarthy) wrote:
 > 
 > 
 > >Here's another example.
 > >
 > >The Mississippi River put 405 million acre-feet of water into the 
 > Gulf of
 > >Mexico each year.  Here's the calculation of 
 > gallons/day/inhabitant.
 > >
 > >(/ (/ (* 405.0e6 (/ acre-foot gallon)) 365.0) 260e6)
 > >1.390e+03, i.e. 1390 gallons/day/inhabitant.
 > >
 > >California, the largest agricultural state in terms of value of
 > >products uses 35 million acre-feet per year.  It is considered a
 > 
 > my software appeared to clip some more here, oops
 > 
 > The water in any river is already used several times over by each 
 > city and town that is on the river.  They all take water from the 
 > river and return some of it back.  If you divert the rivers 
 > somewhere else, how will the cities on the river get their water?  
 > At any given moment there is only so much fresh water available.  
 > How many times can wastewater cleaning systems clean up the water 
 > before it becomes unusable.
When I was a schoolboy in the 1930s, I was told that each drop of
water in the Mississippi was used 17 times.  It is only recently that
I did a calculation that showed this was nonsense.  It is more like
0.4 times.  An accurate answer would require knowing the population of
the Mississippi Valley - which someone has doubtless calculated.
The geography of California is such that I doubt the water is used
even as much as twice.
I don't think the U.S. is even close to real difficulties with fresh
water, although we will have to spend money, as did our ancestors, to
increase the supply.
See my
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/water.html.
Incidentally, if Kerry Lund would supply a source for the 1500
gallons/person/day, I would probably refer to it in the above Web
page.
-- 
John McCarthy, Computer Science Department, Stanford, CA 94305
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

jw wrote:
> We have no direct evidence that life exists elsewhere,
> true - but we also have no evidence of *any* kind that
> it *could* have arisen here.
We certainly have even less evidence that 1. life evolved elsewhere or that
2. the panspermia hypothesis is even feasible.
Besides, what would you consider "evidence" that life could have arisen
here?  I'd say the fact that the conditions are right (trivially
demonstrated by the fact that we can live here) is a good sign.
-- 
        Erik Max Francis, &tSftDotIotE; / email:  max@alcyone.com
                      Alcyone Systems /   web:  http://www.alcyone.com/max/
 San Jose, California, United States /  icbm:  37 20 07 N  121 53 38 W
                                    \
           "Gods are born and die, / but the atom endures."
                                  / (Alexander Chase)

In <32EA3CE2.7B32006D@math.nwu.edu> Leonard Evens 
writes: 
>
>jw wrote:
[...]
>> For example, human beings live in Europe; it follows
>> that they evolved *somewhere*; the supposition
>> that they evolved in Europe was never the simplest
>> or most probable - even *before* evidence of African
>> origin was found. Why? Because preconditions in Europe
>> were not right. As for preconditions for life's
>> origin, we simply do not know them.
>
>Your general point has some validity but you push it too far.  If we
do
>in fact have evidence that something could not have arisen in situ,
then
>we would have to look for evidence that it arose elsewhere.  
Yes - but this is an extreme case. We need not wait for
the evidence that it *could not* have arisen *in situ*
to begin exploring alternatives. There need not be
any *a priori* preference at all for the *in situ*
hypothesis. All likely possibilities ought to
be considered.
>A good
>example would be the exisence of humans in the new World.   
Yes, a very good one.
>Given no
>other information, it would be reasonable to assume it arose here,
No, it would not! It would only be reasonable to
*consider* this possibility, not to *assume* it.
>which is what some Native American groups still insist.   
Well, *that* is not even worth *considering* except as
an example of dangerous ideological obscurantism.
>But given all we do
>know about human ancestry and fossil remains, we can reject that
>hypothesis.  
Indeed we can - yet if we had started by *assuming* it,
we would have been blinkered by the false assumption,
and would have lost time, not exploring the alternatives.
>Your example about Europe is not quite so good, however.  
About equally as good.
>Some paleontologists still argue in fact that Homo Sapiens arose
>independently in different parts of the world from existing members of
>the genus Homo, although everyone agrees that the genus originated in
>Africa.   
And that was exactly what I was speaking of. 
>I think those aguing that our species also arose in Africa
>have the stronger arguments, but the last I heard, the matter was not
>yet completely settled.
I know. But I was not speaking of the particular *species*.
I said "human beings": that ought to be clear enough.
If it was not, I will spell it out: first human beings 
definitely appeared in Africa, not in Europe; 
the species Homo sapiens (to which
all still-living human beings belong) did not exist then, 
it arose much later.

Michael Pelletier (mikep@valhalla.comshare.com) wrote:
: In article <5cb0vb$n9v$7@gruvel.une.edu.au>,
: ibokor  wrote:
: >Michael Pelletier (mikep@valhalla.comshare.com) wrote:
: >: 
: >: If only they'd *had* stock, a board of directors, and shareholders to
: >: answer to, instead of a monolithic, oppressive, command-and-control
: >: communist economy, the disaster probably never would have happened.
: >
: >The only case of an actual "melt-down" I have seen reported in tye
: >press occurred in Switzerland --- hardly a communist country.
: 
: Could you tell us how many deaths and how much non-utility property
: damage was caused by this Swiss incident, and then compare that with
: the Chernobyl explosion, please?  I've never seen any references
: to this accident.
It was a hardly publicised!
The reactor is in a tunnel under a mountain near the shores
of Lake Neuchatel near the village/town of Lucens. The tunnel has
been concreted in and the Government paying the bill for permanent
miltary guard. There was talk in the late eighties of saving
money by ceasing this.
The number of casualties is unknown to me. I presume it was very
samll, possibly with no loss of life. The point is that even with 
the best possible safety features in a decidely non-Communist country,
the sort of accident that the nuclear lobby claims is virtually
impossible with "proper controls" *has already occurred* despite 
"proper controls".
In the UK at least, news of nuclear accidents --- like the near
exposion of a nuclear warhead at an airbase when a bomb was
dropped/knocked --- have remained classified information for over 
three decades.
Thus it was only after Chernobyl that the British Governement's
release of information about a very similar -- albeit much smaller --
similar "incident" in the fifities near the Lakes District.
d.A.

A "web chat" discussion on acoustic ecology will be held live on the 
World Wide Web on Tuesday, January 28, from 8:00 - 9:00 PM (EST). The 
chat session, open to anyone,  is hosted by Ivars Peterson, Math/Physics 
Editor & Online Editor of Science News. Tenatively featured online 
guests include  Susan Frykberg of Simon Fraser University and Jim 
Metzner, who wrote and procuded the CD book, Pulse of the Planet. 
You can participate in the discussion by setting your browsers to the 
web site of Soundprint at: http://soundprint.org/
Click on the title "Soundprint Chat".  Soundprint is a producer of radio 
documentries broadcast on NPR.
In a chat session individuals interact "live" with the program guests in 
basically a question and answer format.  What you type on your computer 
keyboard instantly appears on every participant's computer screen 
simultaneously.  A moderator guides the discussion.
Ivars Peterson's December 12, 1996,  Science News article exploring the 
field of acoustic ecology, "Sound of the Seasons", is now available on 
the Science News website at: http://www.sciencenews.org/
For futher information contact: ip@scisvc.org OR amanda@soundprint.org

Eric Flesch wrote:
> 
> On Sat, 25 Jan 1997 02:59:45 -0800, Macarthur Drake wrote:
> >>Europeans in 1491 could have used this argument to explain why the can't be a
> >>continent between Europe and India.
> 
> Entirely untrue, as half of the Earth was already known.  The best
> that the Europeans could have said was that the other half of the
> world was not more advanced than they were -- which was true, of
> course.
Sorry Eric, check your history(besides European history).  The chinese
were more advanced in science and medicine as well as commmon sense and
hygiene than the europeans until around the industrial revolution. And
this was because the chinese rulers in their arrogance closed off
contact with the western world under the assumption they had nothing to
learn from them.
Think about Europeans din't take baths back then, they thought it would
make them sick. Rats were known to have made nests in ladies' hair, who
didn't take it down to wash it for months and eat into their skulls.
Oh Please! Give me a break.
W|ght

If President Clinton urges sanctions against Canada for allowing Natives 
living a traditional subsistence lifestyle from harvesting bowhead 
whales, the principal of consistency (a principal of logical argument 
often ignored in this newsgroup) would also require him to impose 
sanctions on the United States, would it not?  After all, Alaskan Natives 
are also granted the same priviledge.

In <32EA77F1.E45CEBE@alcyone.com> Erik Max Francis 
writes: 
>
>jw wrote:
>
>> We have no direct evidence that life exists elsewhere,
>> true - but we also have no evidence of *any* kind that
>> it *could* have arisen here.
>We certainly have even less evidence that 1. life evolved elsewhere or
We know that life has arisen *somewhere*.
"Somewhere" means "here" or "elsewhere". But there are
many "elsewhere" places and only one "here".
>that
>2. the panspermia hypothesis is even feasible.
Vague. It is a hypothesis, not proved, not disproved.
What do you mean by "feasible"?
>Besides, what would you consider "evidence" that life could have
arisen
>here?  
If someone discovered spontaneous generation of life
anywhere on Earth now, that would do it.
If someone produced life in a lab, under conditions
approximating those that existed on Earth at some
time, that would be very strong evidence.
If someone produced life in a lab, under conditions
that differ from those that existed on Earth - but
the difference is likely to affect only the speed
of the effect - that would be strong evidence.
If fossils of intermediate pre-life forms were discovered
in the appropriately dated strata, that would be 
fairly strong evidence.
>I'd say the fact that the conditions are right (trivially
>demonstrated by the fact that we can live here) is a good sign.
The conditions are right for life to survive.
They are not right for life to arise from dead
matter - because this never happens.
*Were* conditions ever right for this? That is the question.
What conditions *would* be right for it? That
is another question.

	I'm new to this group, but jumping right in....
	I don't approve of the personal attacks going on in this thread, but the
POINT Mike was trying to make is a good one, namely that just because
humans are "part of the picture" doesn't mean they are all of the picture.
	Animals like the grizzly have a right to exist.  I hate using the word
"right" because it has such human connotations, but it's the most accurate
word I can think of just now.  It will not hurt humankind to allow these
animals to live unmolested in a small area of California.  Humankind,
however, will be deprived of a greater richness of experience if we
systematically kill off other living creatures to satisfy our own greed for
private space.
	Anyone who bothers to learn the basics of ecology must acknowledge the
crucial role that natural predators play in ecosystems.  Humans do not
qualify as natural predators because they do not eliminate the sick, weak
and deformed.  It is essential for the health of prey populations to have
genetically inferior animals removed.  Grizzly bears are vital to their
ecosystems because they perform this service.
	I would like to be able to tell my children someday that these magnificent
animals still exist in the wild, outside the bars of a zoo.  Even if we
never lay eyes on them, knowing they survive and complete their ecosystem
will remind us that we are all part of a natural order and can share our
world.
	Touchy feely, I know, but I had to balance the hostility out there...
	Katrina

In <32EA3CE2.7B32006D@math.nwu.edu> Leonard Evens 
writes: 
>Really all we can say is that we know very little about the matter.
But then you proceed to say much more :-)
>One can argue either way.  
I agree. Therefore, *neither* possibility can be dismissed
by an easy application of Occam's razor and some lather...
>On the one hand the earliest evidence of life
>on our planet comes only (on a geological time scale) shortly after it
>was possible, so one can argue there wasn't time for life to evolve.
>One has to be careful however about such arguments.  Remember that in
>the 19th century, the physicist, Lord Kelvin, proved that the Sun
could
>be at most 10 million years old or so, which cast doubt on whether or
>not there was sufficient time for evolution.  He was of course wrong
>because he didn't know about radioactivity. 
Yes - but his *wrong* estimate *rightly* cast doubt 
on evolution. The error was in the *estimate*, not in the 
conclusion: in actuality evolution *did* take longer than
ten million years.
> Perhaps there is something
>about the origin of life which we don't know which if we did would
make
>it reasonable that early forms could develop fairly rapidly.  
Perhaps. This is the only hope for the indigenous
origin hypothesis.
All I say is that alien origin ought to be considered
as a viable possibility, on a par with indigenous origin.
>On the
>other hand, it is possible that life arose elsewhere and was somehow
>transported here.  but then one ask where it came from and how it got
>here and a lot of other questions, 
Right.
>none of which can go beyond mere speculation.
On that, I can't agree. There are many opportunities
for hard research, not just speculation. 
Suppose someone produces life in a lab
and shows how it could have happened naturally?
That would make the local origin hypothesis
much more likely.
Suppose that a probe of Mars soil comes
up with live organisms - and that they
prove to be related to terrestrial life?
That would practically clinch the alien
origin hypothesis - and open avenues
for further research into the ultimate source. 
Suppose that the Mars organisms prove to be *unrelated* to
terrestrial life? This would make alien
origin less likely - but also suggest
that life is not rare in the universe; and
also would give us enormous insights into what life is
and how it could arise.
Consider some discoveries already made. We know now that
*very many* stars have planetary systems. Not so
long ago, that was much in doubt. That's
a lot of places of potential origin. We know now that
on Earth, viable life forms exist deep into the crust,
inside rocks - which makes life transportation in meteorites 
more likely. We know that Mars passed through a 
period when surface life could have existed there.
Then there are the two Martian meteorites in
which fossils of former life are suspected.
This  is not mere speculation. The problem *may*,
with a good deal of luck, be solved soon. At
the least, it can be attacked from many directions.
E.g., how much cosmic radiation can RNA absorb 
and still produce some proteins? 

Thom Swan & Shiloh Lightfoot wrote:
> 
> If President Clinton urges sanctions against Canada for allowing Natives
> living a traditional subsistence lifestyle from harvesting bowhead
> whales, the principal of consistency (a principal of logical argument
> often ignored in this newsgroup) would also require him to impose
> sanctions on the United States, would it not?  After all, Alaskan Natives
> are also granted the same priviledge.
Hmmm, maybe we *should* drop 'Cousin Bill' a line or two, before he
becomes a victum of "Pot, Kettle, Black" syndrome. I have *not* heard of
either the Canadian or the Alaskan native population abusing this right.
Two bowhead whales go a damn long way in feeding and use, and if the
Canadian Natives live as inaccessibly (for food delivery, lack of
"grocery store") as some of our Alaskan Natives, then what??? Are you
going to let *them* starve to death? Jeeez!
Cat in Alaska

Turn your home waste into worm castings - some of the best fertilizer on 
the planet!  See how at:
          http://members.aol.com/hppydworms/happyd.htm

Yeah Right, I'm SO SURE he'll do it. 
-- 
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                  shughes@sn.no  
          Me transmitte sursum, Caledoni!
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