Hawkings is a brilliant man, but he is just thinking out loud. He doesn’t really know. It is true that it wouldn’t be a contest. We would definitely loose if we went to war with any aliens that made it our way, but there is also a good chance that an alien race would have out grown a “fittest of the fit” culture.

And for all of you who feel “fittest of the fit” is how things must be, then remember that Hawkings probably would not have made the “fittest” list in such a world and not lived. We do live in a violent world, but cultures are becoming more civil everyday. Even 3rd world countries have “technological superior” countries sending doctors to heal the sick and even plastic surgeons to fix things like cleft pallets (non-life threatening) all in the name of compassion, not conquest.

For those that appeal to Hawkings being right because he is smarter than any of us- then what about other physicists who are just as smart but disagree? Hawkings is very intelligent, but he is not the only intelligent physicist in the world. Do, we measure the size of their brains or something to see who is right? :o)

My daughter had one of those kiddie doctor sets when she was younger. I was amazed to find that the simple stethoscope it had did indeed work- and worked quite well. I'm sure not as good as a doctors stethoscope though.

"...most people assume that because science relies on logic and careful reasoning, scientists would behave in a clinical and dispassionate way. Nothing is farther from the truth. Carl's popularity had backfired on him not once but twice..."

Something that troubles me is that while scientist sometimes eat their own, it is the public that fund much of their work. If Sagan is popular amoung the laymen, it might be a good thing for all scientist, because the public is more likely to support funding.

I am puzzled about the cicada prime number life cycle idea. Just because other animals have even year life cycles, isn't their always an abundent amount of preditors any given year? Just because their life cycle is an even numbers of years, doesn't mean each animal is the same age.

I am not saying this is wrong. I am just puzzled by the idea.

I think the most important "weird" thing about water is that it exapands when it freezes. Most other things in our universe get smaller and more dense when they are cooled.

If this didn't happen our oceans could very well freeze up. Ice would sink allowing more ice to form at the top and continue to sink to the bottom until the oceans froze solid. This would happen even in wamers climates because the sun can only reach so far down.

This incredible property does have it's draw backs when ice expands to crack roads, water pipes, foundations and pretty much anything it can creep into in the winter. :o)

Foreigner1,
I am curious about your comment, “Our whole human bipedal evolution seems to be pointed at the one-day-in evolution point that humans would have to drive cars and fly aeroplanes”.

Isn’t this statement saying you accept evolution? If so, then I am puzzled that you say Darwin is wrong?

Respectfully,
Morris

I agree with this article that man evolved toward endurance running, but I agree with the others that we are not even close to being the champions in the animal kingdom.

I would imagine the only advantage we have is our versatility. What animal can run, jump, swim, and also climb as well as we do?

"...so children wouldn't mistake him for a large chunk of cheese living under the sea."

That cracks me up, because that is what I thought Spongbob was when the show was first broadcast.

I am not impressed. Gyroscopes have been around for millinia. I think the old-style training wheels are better training aids, because they only assit the child when the bike is leaning. Otherwise they are not contacting the ground. The child learns how to NOT need any assitance from the training wheels.

This gyroscope wheel is always on, and makes the child learn to ride in a diffent way than they will encounter when they take it off. They will have to relearn their balance on a bike once the gyroscope is removed. I find it interesting that they don't show any kids trying to ride the bikes. They just roll the bikes and watch them fall over, proving they wouldn't prevent a child from doing so.

P.S. It might work better in the back, but that is not practicle, because it would need to accomodate the chain and brake elements of the bike.

I give them a thumbs up for perhaps starting a new craze in bike enthusiasm. Kids in the US don't ride bikes very much anymore. So, the gyroscope wheel does have some mertis.

I think Stewart and Colbert do a pretty good job at telling the news like it is. I listen to all news outlets from right to left. These guys are the only ones that constantly rag both sides.

I am amazed at this hostility to evolution. There is no reason you can't be a Christian (or any religion) and beleive in evolution.

I have always lived by the idea that "Science is the study of how God did things". If you can believe that God magically zapped us into existance, why couldn't he simply have used evolution to make us instead?

The Bible only says God created Man. It does not go into details of how he did it.

I saw the 1992 movie of this with Peter Weller (Robocop) and it was the most bizarre thing I ever saw. It was somewhat entertaining, but like the book you really never had your bearings on what was happening.

Didn't this movie have a talking anus? Man, I thought I had repressed that. Crap I'm freakin' out again!!

College is not a scam. The price of a college degree is a scam. It just shouldn't be that much and it keeps going up more and more each year.

I think fundamentally, the problem is that the goverment is enabling people to get loans they couldn't otherwise get. This inturn tells universities they can ask for more and the cycle continues. No different than the housing bubble.

Regardless, you should always try to get an education or a skilled trade. There are just so many "good paying" factory jobs. What are you going to do work in a store, or flip burgers your whole life?

The accontant may not make a lot more, but I'll bet her benefits are much better. She probably has 401K matching and health benefits.

This article is silly.
Their thesis is that human contact helps IQ's of both chimps and humans. That seems fine.

Then they test baby chimps. One group gets human attention the other none, just the necessisites of life such as food.

So, their conclusion should be chimps in the wild do not develop as fast as chimps with human contact. If they want to draw the conclusion that humans should develope better too, I think that is fine, but what does the study have to do with comparing the intelligence of humans to chimps? Wild chimps will score better than humans the first year too.

This kind of makes it easy to discrimate on age, gender, race or religion. All you have to do is decide who you don't want and pick something else.

Hmmm. If you don't want to hire a woman, tell her she wasn't chosen becaues she is a scorpio. But why stop their why say it is because you don't hire red-heads, or people from Missouri, or people who watch a particular TV show, or maybe you don't like their favirote ball team?

If you can discriminate for a zodiac sign, you can pretty much discriminate for anything.