Doomsday Clock Advances

[BillT]

Due to the combined effects of unchecked climate change and nuclear weapon modernization the clock was moved two minutes closer to midnight (Doomsday).

http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2015/01/bulletin-atomic-scientists-moves-doomsday-clock-2-minutes-closer-midnight?utm_campaign=email-news-weekly&utm_src=email

The board that sets the clock includes more than 20 scientists, 17 of which have won Nobel Prizes.

[Mugwump]

Due to the combined effects of unchecked climate change and nuclear weapon modernization the clock was moved two minutes closer to midnight (Doomsday).

http://news.sciencemag.org/people-events/2015/01/bulletin-atomic-scientists-moves-doomsday-clock-2-minutes-closer-midnight?utm_campaign=email-news-weekly&utm_src=email

The board that sets the clock includes more than 20 scientists, 17 of which have won Nobel Prizes.

...tick..tick..tick.....and folks still can't tell the time.......

[LizStreithorst]

I know, I know, I know.  I heard the story and interview on NPR.  It's depresssing and I have chosen not to think about it since I, like all of us, am part of the problem.

Let he who uses no fossil fuels cast the first stone.

[Mugwump]

I know, I know, I know.  I heard the story and interview on NPR.  It's depresssing and I have chosen not to think about it since I, like all of us, are part of the problem.

Let he who uses no fossil fuels cast the first stone.

Alternative energy sources just can't be refined soon enough....but it's happening,,,,

[GraphicGr8s]

Guess none of you believe in God or the bible.

[Mugwump]

Guess none of you believe in God or the bible.

we'll not argue that here tho.....................

[BallAquatics]

My IT work takes me to different religious establishments from time to time.  When they start in on me, as they always will, I simply say, "My hope is that you are as comfortable with your beliefs as I am with mine."

Dennis

[BillT]

"My hope is that you are as comfortable with your beliefs as I am with mine."

Sweet!!!

[BillT]

Guess none of you believe in God or the bible.

Not at all clear how this applies to anything being discussed.

[LizStreithorst]

I understand what he's saying.  He's saying that science is a form of religion.  His thinking doesn't make a world if sence to me, but that's what he believes.  I believe otherwise.  It will make no difference in the long run who is right and who is wrong.

All all animals, I imagine all living things, live high on the hog and use up resources that sustain us when the resources are available.  We are no better than any other living thing on the planet.  We are all short sighted.  It's in the nature of living things to be that way.

[GraphicGr8s]

Guess none of you believe in God or the bible.

Not at all clear how this applies to anything being discussed.

See reply #5

[Mugwump]

Guess none of you believe in God or the bible.

Not at all clear how this applies to anything being discussed.

See reply #5

Bingo....    

[BillT]

All all animals, I imagine all living things, live high on the hog and use up resources that sustain us when the resources are available.  We are no better than any other living thing on the planet.  We are all short sighted.  It's in the nature of living things to be that way.

This is actually one of the basic premises of natural selection.

The potential unrestrained growth rate of populations (plants, animal, fungi, bacteria, whatever) will result in populations that will exceed the capacity of their environment to support them. This is an idea of Malthus, which was an important influence on Darwin's developing his explanation of evolution.

The result is a competition for resources and the selection of those organisms and of their offspring in the next generation that do best (at surviving, growing and breeding).

Sadly, if we don't act as a group we will poison the world we live, analogous to a culture in a small container, increasing their population size, using up their resources, polluting their environment until their population crashes or completely dies out.

These arguments are like math to me.

[BillT]

Guess none of you believe in God or the bible.

I would point out that:

1) Scientific understanding does not rule out religious belief (the current head of the NIH (National institutes of Health, which is the main funder of biological research in the country) is a very religious guy who written a book on this.

2) As Dennis pointed out, there are many different religious beliefs which have conflicting takes on various questions, some objective real world phenomenon open to observation and experimentation, some strictly theological. Through the ages, taking Christianity (or Islam) as an example, there have been many divisions has groups have gone different ways on one issue or another.
Who is to choose which is right and wrong? Or perhaps they are all right in the commonality of their shared messages, but perhaps not so much in others (like specific holidays).

3) As science has advanced, various religiously supported beliefs (which don't seem to be central foundational religious beliefs) have been abandoned, such as the earth is the center of the universe and everything revolves around it.
These are facts of the objective commonly observable real world and therefore open to possible falsification (disapproval), whereas a prime concern of religion is a mentally internal relationship with God and subjective.

[Mugwump]

ok ...we done.....