Hehe - can't argue with that contrived logic, and that's for sure

The whole supposition that it's based upon an impossibility shows a certain supercilious viewpoint - as no scientific understanding or knowledge needs to be employed in order to disprove anything based upon a set of impossible parameters.

So it's impossible to prove, yet impossible to disprove - and from a standpoint of "prove me wrong" which that takes, it's impossible to construct any arguement that may be accepted.

So, it's a fact that on "earth" conditions pure water boils at 100 degrees C at 1atm. Happy now?

Maybe not. Though there is no evidence to suggest it (which is why there is nothing mentioned in the theory ), it is always possible that at a specific point in time and space, water may not have boiled at 100 C.

First of all, that supposition is NOT based on an impossibility. There is always a possibility that something random will happen causing the boiling point to change at a certain point. Quantum mechanics does that to a universe. What I did say was impossible was observing water boiling at 100 C at every point in time and every point in space. Under classical physics that can never happen, at least according to my understanding. For one thing, time is infinite, possibly space too. (EDIT: Similarly, there is no provision for backwards time travel under classical physics)

The idea of a theory is that it is not impossible to disprove. Because logically we cannot find any other factors that would affect the boiling point of water, it is taken for granted that it boils at the above temperature. The 'theory' is most likely complete, but there must always be room for amendment and/or refinement.

It's not a standpoint of "prove me wrong". It's a standpoint of "here's what I think based on the evidence I have gathered and because I have no reason to believe otherwise, if you can do better then go ahead".

Oh, and in answer to your question: no, it's not.

Edited by - The Evil Thing on 5/4/2006 1:42:05 PM

I have a question. Is a T-Rex a scavenger or a hunter? Many people think they are hunters but I don't know based the length of its arms. Most hunters have large arms for hunting and killing.

That's still very much a subject of debate among palaeontologists. Jack Horner (the guy they consulted for the Jurassic Park films and team leader during the excavation of 8 of the 30 known Rex skeletons) has put forward his own suggestions that T Rex was solely a large scavenger, capable of bullying other predators away from their kill. His main reasons are that he considers Rex to have been too slow to give chase to prey (and that if he had been capable of moving fast he was massive enough and his arms short enough that he would break his ribcage on hitting the ground), had very large olfactory bulbs (meaning he had an incredible sense of smell) which Rex would have used to smell out carrion and that Rex had a heavily built skull with muscle attachments such that Rex probably had one of the strongest bites this world has ever seen, this would be useful if you were scavenging the bodies of large animals with thick bones.
On the other hand, there are several arguments for Rex actually being capable of some speed while others argue that his prey would have been just as slow as him. Rex had binocular vision like most modern predators including us humans; it helps in judging distances which is very useful while chasing prey. If Rex was purely a scavenger, it would follow that all the other Tyrannosaur species (being of similar size and shape) would have been scavengers too, leaving the dromaesaurids (raptors) as the main large predators in the Cretaceous eco-system.
There's also an Edmontosaurus skeleton that was found to have a wound in one of its tail bones that correlated with a tyrannosaur bite mark yet it had managed to heal over. If tyrannosaurs were purely scavengers, the animal would have had to have been dead when it was bitten, in which case the wound could not have healed.
There are all sorts of other arguments about predator populations, the distances scavengers have to travel to find carrion and the energy spent doing that. And the arguments about Rex running speeds just go on and on. However, a most palaeontologists seem to agree that Rex, like most modern predators would have scavenged and hunted, taking whatever opportunity arose to get food.

Hope that helps fleish!

Must admit, if Rex was a scavenger exclusively, then I'd assume they'd need to find one heck of a lot of carcasses to feed from!

I did hear something on the radio (or bbc web site) about the velocoraptor (no, i haven't been bothered to check the spelling) and how it most likely didn't cling on and then rip it's prey with its back legs/claws a la inferrence of Jurassic park etc. Can't remember quite why though, or find on a quick search any documentation about it either.

as for TET, it seems almost like semantics to me to be honest. Like the advert of "Fact, demestos kills 99.9% of household bacteria" - where it can't be a fact as we may:
A) discover that it doesn't work on 99.9% of harmful bacteria at a black hole (i'm taking the piddle )
or more honestly - it can't be a fact because we may one day discover more bacteria that are resistant to it, therefore reducing the percentage chance.

In which case being a pedant you'd be quite right to say "we don't know everything ever to therefore rule out any potential unexplicable changes in the future", but being a pragmatist it'd be within the normal general acceptance of society to say it's a "fact". Kinda like people saying a vacuum cleaner sucks dirt up for practical/everyday talk - even though suction doesn't actually exist.

In other words, for practical reasons i'm still going to retain my definition of a fact instead of starting to talk about theoretical figures based upon accepted current understanding and potentially unexplicable variables

It'd make any modern day bog standard conversation into a nightmare.

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normal general acceptance of society to say it's a "fact". Kinda like people saying a vacuum cleaner sucks dirt up for practical/everyday talk - even though suction doesn't actually exist.

In other words, for practical reasons i'm still going to retain my definition of a fact instead of starting to talk about theoretical figures based upon accepted current understanding and potentially unexplicable variables

It'd make any modern day bog standard conversation into a nightmare.

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And that, good sir, is the difference between science and the lay. The definition is not too pedantic for scientists, after all it was pedantry that led to the discovery of subatomic particles etc.

Don't take any of this the wrong way. I'm only trying to point out that Final's dismissal of evolution as 'just a theory' shows a fundamental ignorance of the scientific method and terminology (no offence intended). I'm certainly not proposing that we stop using the word theory in it's common context. That is, after all, what string theory and the theory of everything come under, because they ARE 'just a guess'. We have very little evidence for them and scientists are perfectly happy to admit that, indeed, they are often the first.

What I'm trying to say is, please recognise when a theory is used in the context of a 'guess' and when it's used in the context of a working model of some natural system that produces predictions which can be tested and confirmed.

The T-Rex can move up to 32 miles per hour. If you have seen jurassic park the T-Rex is much too loud. I forget what his name is but the dinosaur in the beggining that is a hebivore is way too soft. His roar should of made them pass out.

After the Earth was hit by a meator, it changed the weather so only one gender of dinosaur was born, and the species died because it could not repreduce.

Life: No one gets out alive.

I would have to disagree because the XY chromosome can not be changed by the weather.

I think RILMS is referring to how the sex of reptiles can be dependent on the temperature of the egg as the embryo develops. Personally I think that the conditions after a large meteor impact would not be favourable to large creatures with large energy requirements such as the dinosaurs. Those that survived the initial impact would have starved to death.

@ Rec,

You are correct. And as for food, that probally another reason they died.

The death of the dinosaurs is probally a combinations of factors.

Life: No one gets out alive.

One of my ideas is that all the herbivores ate poisonous plants then died. The carnivores ate them and developed the disease and died.

That is highly unlikely, I must say.

There is absolutely no reason why the herbivores who had somehow managed to avoid all the poisonous plants would spontaneously decide that they were the tastiest. Secondly, how does a predator catch a fatal disease after eating prey that has been poisoned by plant toxins?

Okay rather than nit-picking at fleish mixing up disease with poisoning. Let's look at the assumptions that would have to be made for this extinction by plant poisoning to occur.
1. There is some species of plant that all herbivorous dinosaurs ate.
2. This plant suddenly develops poisonous qualities.
(or several species of plant developed toxins simultaneously such that all species of dinosaur herbivore are affected)
3. This poison is only fatal to dinosaurs, mosasaurs, plesiosaurs and pterodactyls while other species survive
4. This poison continues to be dangerous to carnivores if they eat an affected animal.
5. Sea-based piscivores start eating land based animals so that this toxin enters their food chain.
6. This toxin has to be incredibly powerful such that as it extends down the food chain it is capable of wiping out creatures like the largest mosasaurs.
7. It has to wipe out an incredibly large percentage of the population of some species such that they are unable to recover. For example smaller grazers like protoceratops were known to exist in very large numbers. Say there are 1 million of them and this toxin wipes out as much as 99% of them; you're still left with a population of 10,000 surviving.