VincentRJ

Okay! I'll try to explain it to you. The words 'chance' and 'accident' are human constructs which describe events that have causes that are too complicated for humans to precisely understand and control. When we say 'something happened by chance', it means 'we don't understand in sufficient detail all the causes of the event and therefore cannot control the outcome', as in the example of tossing a coin and predicting the outcome of 'heads' or 'tails'. Science is based upon a general understanding that every effect has a cause, and scientists do their best to understand those causes. Engineers and technologists use that understanding to create the products that contribute to our safety and prosperity, and during the past couple of hundred years or so, they've done a remarkable job, wouldn't you agree? However, whether it's a confirmed scientific theory, or a new technological project, scientists understand that nothing is 100% certain. Everything lies within a range of probabilities, and accurately assessing those probabilities is sometimes very challenging and often impossible. The problem is that most of the population don't seem to understand the 'methodology of science', which requires repeated testing under controlled conditions in order to reach a high level of confidence that a particular outcome can be predicted as a result of a sufficient understanding of the causes involved. The degree of certainty about many issues are therefore exaggerated for political, personal, and economic purposes, and some scientists go along with that exaggeration for various personal reasons, probably associated with career opportunities, wealth and fame. Attributing a cause to 'God' is probably the most extreme exaggeration. However, some people probably benefit from the 'placebo effect', which is very prevalent throughout society. When people are prescribed pharmaceutical drugs by their doctor, part of the efficacy of those drugs is due to the placebo effect, that is, a belief in the doctor and the medical industry. The placebo effect is estimated to be around 30 to 35%, according to many studies. Got it? ????

Don't you know that nothing occurs by chance or accident? ????

The early ancestors of humans were slow to develop and had to hide during the time of the Dinosaurs. God was not pleased, so he sent to the Earth a huge asteroid, between 10 and 15 km wide, in order to destroy all of those huge, vicious creatures. ???? This allowed our early ancestors, such as purgalicious primatoids, which were small furry animals like rats, to gradually evolve into apes, monkeys and humans. "The diversity of mammals on Earth exploded straight after the dinosaur extinction event, according to UCL researchers. New analysis of the fossil record shows that placental mammals, the group that today includes nearly 5000 species including humans, became more varied in anatomy during the Paleocene epoch - the 10 million years immediately following the event." https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2015/dec/mammal-diversity-exploded-immediately-after-dinosaur-extinction

Surely the main issue here is whether those who were injured, and died, as a result of the collapse, will be compensated by the government, and/or contractors, due to their incompetence regarding safety controls, and how much will that compensation be to the families of those who died.

What I find amazing is that the USA is the third worst. South Africa is the worst. Thailand is the 2nd worst and the USA is the third worst. Crikey!

Wow! I've never seen so many maggots. I guess they just love that fried egg. ????

I hope there are no cases of 'spontaneous combustion of batteries'.

Excellent idea! The more parks the better. I hope they can find enough vacant property, and/or relocate slum dwellers.

This is a good policy, as long as they don't consider the CO2 emissions a pollutant. ????

This is the crucial point that seems to have been missed by those who did not read the full story. "He admitted he was not familiar with the effects of marijuana and was also highly intoxicated on alcohol." Excessive alcohol can interact with many supplements in a bad way.

To get things into perspective, considering the likelihood that there are hundreds of trillions of planets in the universe, the closest stars to our planet Earth, with orbiting planets similar in size, are around 4.25 to 4.35 light years away. "The two main stars are Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B, which form a binary pair. They are about 4.35 light-years from Earth, according to NASA. The third star is called Proxima Centauri or Alpha Centauri C, and it is about 4.25 light-years from Earth, making it the closest star other than the sun." https://www.space.com/18090-alpha-centauri-nearest-star-system.html Now, the fastest speed we have ever achieved in a spacecraft, so far, is 164 km per second. The speed of light is 299,792 kilometers per second. Dividing 299,792 by 164, then multiplying by 4.25, we get 7,769. In other words, if we were able to travel continuously at our current maximum speed of 164 km/sec in a spacecraft, it would takes us 7,769 years to reach the closest orbiting planet outside of our solar system. Even if we were able to increase that speed by 10x, as technology develops, it would still take almost 800 years to reach Proxima Centauri, which has an orbiting planet about 1.4x the mass of the Earth. "Astronomers announced in August 2016 that they had detected an Earth-size planet orbiting Proxima Centauri. The planet is also in the star's habitable zone, that just-right range of distances from a star where liquid water can exist on the surface of a body."

It is estimated there are around 2 trillion galaxies in the universe, some of which are similar to our Milky Way galaxy. It is also estimated there are about 100 million stars (or suns) in the average galaxy, which means there are probably about 'two hundred million trillion' stars in the universe. Most stars probably have a number of orbiting planets, as our own solar system does, so the total number of planets in the universe is mind-bogglingly lage; probably far greater than 2 hundred, million, trillion. It is therefore quite reasonable to assume that there are many millions of planets in the universe where various forms of life have evolved.

Wow! This is the best description of an ideal politician that I've ever read on this site. I hope he makes significant progress in cleaning up Bangkok and making it a more attractive city. ????

I think you've misunderstood my position on this issue. I don't conform to any scientific consensus if i have any reason which causes doubt. If I come across evidence that implies or suggests the 'so-called' or 'promoted' consensus could be incorrect, I'll change my mind, which is what I did on the issue of CO2-driven climate change. As I understand, the process of scientific enquiry should not be based upon a consensus. If it were, it would be more difficult for science to progress because the younger, developing scientists, would think, 'How dare I question the opinions of these great scientists who came before me!' However, if the contrarian proposals which go against the so-called consensus, seems flawed, or do not stack up, then I don't accept them. I do my best to use my nous when adressing such issues. However, I do accept that one can achieve beneficial experiences when meditating and ceasing all thoughts on all issues I think Mark Twain's quote should be repeated here. “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. “

I have to say those 4 statements can be very confusing and seem to defy basic logic. It seems very obvious, at least to me, that our body contains all our thoughts, emotions, feelings and state of knowledge, much of which are stored in our brain at a conscious and unconsciou level. Our brain exists within our body, therfore 'no body' equates to 'no existence', which equates to 'no identity'. Of course, those who believe in a permanent 'soul', or the Indian, Vedic, version of Karma, will believe that their true identity exists outside of their body. However, all such teachings and beliefs, and their interpretations, exist within a human body. A major part of the problem is related to interpretation, which is based upon genetics, experiences in the womb before birth, experiences and education in early childhood, and later life, and so on. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to be completely unbiased Whether it's an alien examining human behaviour, or a human examining animal behaviour, there's an unavoidable element of bias which is related to the intrinsic, biological characteristics of the observer. The reason I have a general interest and admiration for the 'true methodology' of science, is because it is the 'least biased' method of interpretation that humans have devised. However, not all scientists are the most unbiased, even though the 'methodology of science' is. All scientists are obviously human, with concerns about status, wealth, supporting their family, and so on. This factor will obviously affect, to some extent, the opinions of many scientists. I raised the issue of Climate Science in this thread because it's relevant to this inbred bias of human nature. If you have a nice, highly paid job in a government funded Climate Research Centre, which continues to be funded because of a belief in a potential catastrophic scenario caused by continuing CO2 emissions from human activities, then that will likely influence your publicly expressed opinion, despite the lack of 'sound' evidence and the existence of contrary evidence which is rarely publicised in the media. In other words, Climate Change Alarmism has become a type of new religion which exploits the public's 'faith in science', rather than the public's understanding of science and its methodology, and an understanding of its uncertainties when the issue under examination is very complex and chaotic. By the way, your view that science only addresses the materialistic world is flawed. The Electromagnetic Spectrum consists of photons which have no mass, and are pure energy. We can see a small fraction of that spectrum, known as light, but the vast majority of the spectrum is invisible and undetectable by human senses without the aid of scientifically created devices. These non-materialistic forms of energy are everywhere, passing through your body and brick walls, yet people who believe in souls and invisible, scientifically undectable spirits, are unable to detect simple radio waves, which science, with its devices, can easily detect. Who to believe? ????

Who are you?? This question reminds me of the following joke. ???? A crowded United Airlines flight was canceled. A single agent was re-booking a long line of inconvenienced travelers. Suddenly, an angry passenger pushed his way to the desk. He slapped his ticket on the counter and said, "I HAVE to be on this flight and it has to be FIRST CLASS." The agent replied, "I'm sorry, sir. I'll be happy to try to help you, but I've got to help these folks first; and then I'm sure we'll be able to work something out." The passenger was unimpressed. He asked loudly, so that the passengers behind him could hear, "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHO I AM?" Without hesitating, the agent smiled and grabbed her public address microphone. "May I have your attention, please?", she began, her voice heard clearly throughout the terminal. "We have a passenger here at Gate 14 WHO DOES NOT KNOW WHO HE IS. If anyone can help him with his identity, please come to Gate 14". With the folks behind him in line laughing hysterically, the man glared at the United Airlines agent, gritted his teeth, and said, "F*** You!" Without flinching, she smiled and said, "I'm sorry sir, you'll have to get in line for that, too."

Why is this news item showing a picture of white rice? Surely everyone knows that brown rice is far better because it's more nutritious. ????

Very amusing contradictions. ????

If you own your house and land, but have a low income, then surely it's sensible to utilize the land to grow fruit and vegetables and raise chickens for the meat and eggs. In other words, become food self-sufficient. This can be done even on a small plot of land.

They do have evidence, as I've explained. The point I'm making is that the evidence they have provided clearly shows that the 99% consensus only applies to approximately 30% of the of the 3,000 studies that were randomly selected. The rest of the papers expressed no opinion. They have provided no evidence of the opinions of the authors of the majority of the papers they studied. Why are you having a problem understanding this?

Yes, I know it asserts that. The point I'm making is that they have not provided the evidence to support that assertion, which is a similar process to religious belief. In other words, the authors of this article appear to assume, before the study began, that there is a very large consensus that Anthropogenic Cimate Change is a 'settled science', and they twist the descriptions of the results of their research to support that belief. What they should have stated is that 99% of climate scientists who are willing to express an opinion on the issue, agree that the current change in climate is caused by humans. However, the majority of climate scientists do not express an opinion on this issue and we haven't yet investigated why they don't.

Yes I did provide a link in my post in this thread. I've already stated that. I did not provide a link in my previous post in another thread because I was responding to a forum member who had already provided the link to the article that included the graph which I copied from the article. Since the link was already available in the post that I was responding to, I didn't think it was necessary to repeat the link. However, because a link to the article wasn't available in this thread, I included the link when I reposted the graph. If you can't see the link, there must be something wrong with your computer system or software. Below is the link again, copied and pasted from the earlier post. Below the link is a higher-resolution image of the graph, which the article provided. I've also copied a quote from the article, above the graphic, which states that the researchers excluded 282 papers from the random sample of 3,000, because they were not climate related, which is of course very reasonable. What is not reasonable is to assume that the authors of the majority of papers that take no position on Anthropogenic Climate Change (ACC) actually do believe it's a major problem that could be catastrophic if we don't reduce our CO2 emissions. Some of the authors of those 1859 papers that take no position, might think the human contribution to climate change is a major problem but saw no reason to mention it. On the other hand, most of those authors might simply have the view that the human contribution to climate change is impossible to calculate with any accuracy, because they understand that climate is a chaotic and complex and non-linear system, and perhaps they also have an awareness of the proxy evidence from studies in Paleoclimatology which suggests that many rapid changes in climate have occurred in the distant past, both cooling and warming, that are not related to CO2 levels. So, here's the link to the article, immediately below. Can you see it? https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966 "Our random sample of 3000 papers revealed a total of 282 papers that were categorized as 'not climate-related'. Hence, we excluded these papers in accordance with C13's approach. We then assessed the remaining total of 2718 papers in the data set and found four that argued against the scientific consensus of ACC."

You're not making any sense. What sort of a link are you referring to? I've provided a link. If you can't see it, then there's some sort of internet or software problem. It's true I have recently downloaded the graph from the same article before, in another thread, but the link to that article was initially provided by a believer in 'human caused climate change' who posted the link to support his own belief. In my response to his post, I copied and pasted the graph from his own linked article and also stated in my response that the graph was from his own link. You responded by criticising me for not providing a link to the graph, when I'd already stated in my response that the graph was from the link provided by the person I was responding to (Placeholder). In my response to you in this thread, I have provided the internet link as well as the graph contained within the article. Are you not able to see the link? What I think is not credible about the article is the headline-assertion that there is a "Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature". Their own study shows that only about 31.2% of the papers examined, expressed an opinion on the issue. Therefore the evidence presented can only supports a consensus of approximatey 31%.

Okay! Here's a link to a recent study. The articles is free to read. If you take the trouble to read it, you should understand that the headline: "Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature" is very misleading because the paper presents a graph showing that 1,869 of the 2,718 papers randomly selected expressed no opinion on the role of humans in climate change. Below is a copy of that graph. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966 Now one could argue that those papers in which no opinion was expressed on the causes of climate change, could be explained by claiming that the authors already accepted as verified fact that humans are causing the current change in climate, and that's a reasonable speculation. But, nevertheless, it is only speculation. The linked article does not mention whether the authors of those papers with no position, were contacted to confirm that they accepted as true that human CO2 emissions are the driver of the current change in climate. It seems clear that they did not contact the authors, and if they did, they should have mentioned it in their paper.

How do you know that virtually all scientists believe in the existential threat of human CO2 emissions? Did you read it in the media? Have you bothered to read any IPCC reports, comparing the Working Group 1 scientific summary with the Political Summary? Have you examined or read any peer-reviewed papers from the so-called contrarians or skeptics? Are you aware that most scientists don't respond to questionaires about the causes of climate changes and the degree of impact that human emissions of CO2 have, because they understand that climate is too complex and chaotic for any certainty. Do you understand that the high Consensus of 97%, or more, is based upon a minority of peer-reviewed papers where the authors expresses an opinion on the human contribution of CO2 emissions to climate change? I could go on, but I'll leave it there.