Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2009 September 26

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September 26

Blood thinners and broken bones

A guy at the school I attend recently died. From what I understand of the case, he had broken his leg a couple weeks ago. Then just the other day, he collapsed and died due to a blood clot going to his brain. I've heard of this from other places as well where someone breaks a bone and then dies of a stroke due to a blood clot breaking free or whatever they do. So, this got me thinking, would blood thinning medication help this? Also, how rare is this?

Note: I am not requesting medical advice! I am asking out of medical curiosity only. I do not have any broken bones. I have never even had a broken bone, torn a ligament, or sprained an ankle. To my knowledge, I do not know anyone who currently has a broken bone. I did not know the first person that I mentioned and the second person died well over five years ago. I am not going to self medicate any future illness or injury based on your responses. I am not currently, or recently, under any doctor's care due to a bone or blood issue. I do not suffer from any mental illness that would make me lie about my current well being. I am of reasonably sound mind (as much as many of us, at least) and am asking the preceding question of my own free will. I have not died. I have read the reference desk header and am aware of Wikipedia's policy pertaining to not giving medical advice, so please do not advise me of that policy. As I said, I am simply asking out of my own curiosity. Thank you for any useful response that you can give that would satisfy my curiosity, Dismas|^(talk) 00:12, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

LOL. Blood thinners might help, but there's also a risk involved, as they can cause internal bleeding. StuRat (talk) 03:54, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Slightly off-topic, but this term blood thinner is one of my mild peeves. I think a lot of people hear the term and imagine, not unreasonably, that these pharmaceuticals actually make your blood, you know, thinner. Less viscous.

I don't think they do anything of the sort. What anticoagulants actually do is, they interfere with the clotting mechanism at some stage (clotting is an amazingly complicated cascade of events). Since under normal circumstances your blood doesn't clot, there's no reason I can see that interfering with that mechanism should make the blood less viscous. --Trovatore (talk) 05:20, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

How certain are you that he died of a blood clot on the brain? It is more likely that after a broken long bone death is caused by a fat embolism, [1]in the brain. If this were the case then anticoagulant therapy would be of little help. Richard Avery (talk) 09:29, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't that depend on how bad the fracture was? Clots from immobilised limbs do happen but AFAIK they don't give routine Warfarin unless there are other genetic or lifestyle risk factors. --BozMo talk 10:20, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

What you are describing, Dismas, appears to be something called a DVT and the resultant pulmonary embolism. The basics are these: Virhow's Triad states that any mix of hypercoagulability (a state that makes the blood more likely to clot), venous stasis (blood sitting in a vein not really moving) and vascular damage (injury to the inside wall of the veins, in this case) increases the risk of the formation of a blood clot, or thrombus. A broken leg certainly causes stasis, as the movement of blood through the lower extremity is very much dependent on the use of the calf muscles to pump the blood. This injury is also consistent with the possibility of vascular damage. The problem of hypercoagulability is also likely present. Several things can make us hypercoagulable. Surgery anywhere in the body exposes something called tissue factor which can increase coagulation. Fracture itself is known to do the same through another independent mechanism unknown to me, and several genetic traits can increase one's risk of making a blood clot even if they have been silent for a lifetime ( factor V leiden, prothrombin 20210, etc). The problem with forming such a blood clot is that they tend to travel. In most people, the venous system is not directly connected to the arterial system in a way that would allow a large clot to pass from a vein to an artery. And so a clot anywhere in the venous system passes through larger and larger veins until it gets to the heart. Here, it would be pumped into the lungs, where it may cause a potentially deadly condition known as a pulmonary embolus. However there is more. A certain non-trivial percentage of the population has a hole between the two sides of their heart called a patent foramen ovale, or PFO. This hole is normally closed, as it has a flap over it that stays shut as long as the pressure on the right (venous) side of the heart is less than that on the left (arterial) side. However, a pulmonary embolism, if big enough, can reverse that pressure differential, opening the hole. The danger here is that if one clot has passed through the heart to go to the lungs and cause a PE that opened a PFO, another clot may come also, and pass through the PFO into the arterial circulation. A PE is an emergent medical problem, but a thromboembolism in the arterial circulation is even worse. A clot here can easily travel to the brain, and cerainly will cause damage pretty much anywhere it lands. If the patient you describe really died from a clot to the brain, this is the likely mechanism. Tuckerekcut (talk) 15:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for your responses. And no, I'm not certain that it was a blood clot in the brain that killed him. That's just the word around campus. Thanks again, Dismas|^(talk) 09:36, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Could number of binary stars tell us how many planets there are?

I recently read in WP article Binary Stars that a massive 1/3 of ALL stars in the Milky Way (and thus presumably in other galaxies) are in binary or multi-star systems. It then occured to me that solar systems like our own could easily have been a binary star system if Jupiter had been larger than it is. (Jupiter is sometimes called a "failed star"). If the physical processes that cause binary / multi-star systems and planetary systems are essentially the same, then we might be able to make good deductions as to how copious is the number of solar systems. If 1/3 of all stars are binaries or multi, then that suggests that there are a hell of a lot of solar systems. Especially when you factor in that binary star systems would be a lot rarer than sun to planet systems. I would guess that just about EVERY sun had a solar system. Ironically, I would guess that the suns WITHOUT solar systems would be more likely to be binary systems, as the complex gravitational effects to do with the "3 body problem" would make for a much more chaotic system. Planetary perturbations would disturb orbits leading to satellites being ejected from the system or cracking up, and making life (which needs very mild, stable conditions) just about impossible. Anyone think this idea has anything going for it? Myles325a (talk) 04:54, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

This question has been discussed in literature; If I remember correctly, Iosif Shklovsky in "Vselennaya, Zhizn', Razum" (aka Intelligent Life in the Universe) discusses this question, although at the purely theoretical level (the book is 40 years old...). Our article on Drake equation, however, does not discuss this at all. Now for your question proper. Let's assume the binary system is of a detached type (most binary systems probably are, and anyway that's the least volatile type; so a habitable planet can actually stay habitable for a time sufficient to develop life). A habitable planet may orbit either one star of the two (if the stars are sufficiently far apart), or both stars (if the stars are sufficiently close together); in both cases the orbit is nearly elliptical, and may persist indefinitely. Now, you suggest a possibility of deduction of f_P from prevalence of binary systems; well, I am not convinced. It may turn out that there are relatively more gas giants in binary systems because of the initial conditions (more hydrogen??? higher angular momentum???), or relatively fewer gas giants in binary systems (stability issues??? Protoplanetary disk dynamics???). We don't know even that for sure. Gas giants and rocky planets are quite different from each-other, too. So, to the best of my knowledge, at present it is impossible to say if there are more or fewer rocky planets in binary systems. It is also impossible to say if a binary system is more conductive to the development of life. I would guess that the cometary bombardment should be more intense in a binary system, which may be a good thing or a bad thing. So, to summarize: you ask very good questions, but the answers are unknown so far. --Dr Dima (talk) 06:05, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

There is an entire chapter, "Multiple Star Systems", in Intelligent Life in the Universe. Among the theories postulated are in-situ co-formation of the stars; a single star which takes on an unstable, non-spherical form and fissures into two stars; gravitational capture of a star as it drifts near another; and it seems that there's a U.S./Soviet rift on the scientific validity of each of these theories. Naturally, each formation mechanism for binary stars also has implications to planetary formation, but even in our Solar System, the process of planetary formation is not completely understood. As Dr Dima has pointed out, you might really enjoy Shklovskii's book - the questions you raise are not yet solidly answered by even the great cosmologists. Nimur (talk) 14:32, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Op myles325a back here. Thanks for those solid and interesting answers. I was happy to see that my ideas were not simply way out of line. On an associated topic, a similar, simple piece of logical speculation might go as follows. If we on planet Earth know about pulsars when the beam of light that emanates from them intersects with the Earth (the "lighthouse effect"), then could we not make a good guess as to how many pulsars there are in the Milky Way by extrapolating from this? If the orientation of such beams is purely random, then simple math should give us a good a priori approximation of how many pulsar beams do NOT intersect with the Earth, and thus how many there are overall. (Incidentally, I have left a complaint on the Neutron Star talk table to the effect that the article is ambiguous as to whether ALL neuton stars are pulsars and we only see the ones whose beam shines over the Earth, or whether pulsars are only some limited sub set of neutron stars. If the latter, the article gives no idea of what proportion of neutron stars might be pulsars, or why some would be pulsars and some not.) But these are other questions. Myles325a (talk) 23:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Efects of a electromagnetic pulse on living organisms

It's a well known fact that emp's will toast any electronic devices in range, and that on the other hand, they are harmless to any living being. But why? I know why electronic devices are affected, but I have never heard any reason why living beings aren't affected other than a blunt "we don't have wires".

Can anyone direct me to any scientific articles that explain in detail why living organisms are immune to emp's? Why the nervous system (which works on electricity) doesn't act as a bunch of wires or why aren't muscles (which also work on electricity) affected by the surges of an emp? —Preceding unsigned comment added by User:79.113.188.135 (talk • contribs)

An electromagnetic pulse affects electrical and electronic devices by inducing currents and voltage surges in wires and other metal parts. Nerves are not wires and nerve impulses are electrochemical, not electromagnetic, so people and animals are not directly affected by an EMP - although electrocution could be an indirect danger for anyone touching an ungrounded metal object. This item at Yahoo! Answers gives more details. Gandalf61 (talk) 11:22, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Any chance of a link to a in depth scientific article please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by User:79.113.188.135 (talk • contribs)

The Wikipedia articles that I linked to above explain how the nervous system works, and how it does not "work on electricity" in the way that a light bulb or a toaster does. An article such as action potential has references and reading lists if you want to explore that topic further. Gandalf61 (talk) 13:26, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The nervous system works by electrochemical processes, and is extremely responsive to applied electricity, even if it is not a simple electric circuit like a flashlight. 1 milliampere is easily felt through the skin. Quite low voltages can be felt by some sensory nerves. Strong magnetic fields can affect the functioning of the brain. The activity of the brain and nerves can be recorded by surface electrodes, and muscle activity can be controlled by external pulses. Edison (talk) 19:37, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The OP's assertion that electromagnetic pulses "toast" electronic devices is a common misconception. Even a sufficiently powerful pulse must somehow couple into the device's circuitry and induce enough current or voltage to damage something. This is never a "well known fact", it is a case-by-case analysis that must be analyzed for any particular definition of "electromagnetic pulse". It may help to read about electromagnetic pulse - it will help you understand that this phrase actually refers to a huge class of phenomena. Some of them can damage electronics temporarily - or permanently. Some can damage humans - temporarily or permanently. A dose of gamma radiation would count as an EMP and could have long-term health consequences to a living creature. A flashbang or firework releases a bright flash of light - an EMP - which can temporarily stun a human. An FM radio transmitter broadcasts EMPs every minute of the day - and your car stereo doesn't get "fried" each time it tunes in to a station. The term "EMP" has been greatly overused - it's such a vague term that it's hard to make any blanket statement about it at all. Nimur (talk) 14:40, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Standing in front of a radar transmitter was a popular way to keep warm until it was found that the electromagnetic radiation made men sterile. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps one way to look at the difference between animals and electronics is to consider the difference in impedance (which, in this context, is basically a fancy word for resistance). Animals are bags of brine, which is a good conductor, so their internal tissues tend to have resistances on the order of a few ohms. It would take a strong external magnetic field to induce a harmful voltage in them. Modern electronic circuits, on the other hand, tend to have high impedances on the order of millions or even billions of ohms. This means that a small external magnetic field can induce a high voltage in a circuit and destroy it.

Perhaps you meant to say that the insulating substrate of modern electronics has very high impedance. I question it being more than tens or hundreds of megohms from one part of a printed circuit to another. Within the circuit, there are resistors and semiconductors, which do not have the thousand megohm resistance you claim. Within the human body, once the skin is punctured, the resistance would go down to hundreds of ohms. Resistance of dry skin would be much higher. Edison (talk) 14:27, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

One technique that the military uses to harden its critical electronic systems against EMP is to go back to old-fashioned low-impedance circuitry, like electromagnetic relays and some types of vacuum tubes. These systems, like living organisms, would probably survive the EMP if they survived the heat and blast of the explosion itself. --Heron (talk) 10:39, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Isotope´s half-life measurement units

In a table of isotopes of certain element... for example this one:

• Isotopes of hafnium#Table

there´s a cloumn for the half-life of each isotope. In that section, the units used like "µs", "ns", "min" are micro seconds, nano seconds and minutes accordingly (if I´m not wrong), but what does the "a" means? - ☩Damërung ☩. -- 13:28, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I was going to guess Attosecond, but that is normally as. SGGH ^ping! 13:32, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Very likely it is annum or "year". I just verified with this source. The numbers match, but the abbreviation used there is "yr." The usage of a is fairly archaic. We might consider changing the article. Nimur (talk) 14:50, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Editing done (a to yr). B00P (talk) 19:02, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Whoa there, it's not archaic. Although the year is not a "unit accepted for use with the SI" in the SI standard, which could have specified the symbol to be used, the official US Guide for the Use of the International System of Units says this:

Although there is no universally accepted symbol for the year, Ref. [4: ISO 80000-3] suggests the symbol a.

And this is echoed by Wikipedia's article year, right at the top. Similarly, Russ Rowlett's excellent web site about units of measure says here that a is "the official abbreviation for the year in scientific writing". (It seems that "official" is an exaggeration and I'll write to him about that.) --Anonymous, 19:50 UTC, September 26, 2009.

In space no one can hear you...

I recnelty through the f=ma equation around a couple of times to work out the acceleration given to a stationary naked person in deep space (somehow alive) if that person passed wind. For a one second "expulsion" from a 90kg person, which some guesses as to the velocity of such an eruption, I hazarded a rought guess of about 0.5m/s/s or thereabouts. Bearing in mind this was a mess about in a pub, how (im)plausible is that figure? SGGH ^ping! 13:30, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

This has been done well before you were born,,, Try again to make sure of yuor findings!

(Edit Conflict) Presumably your m = metres, not miles! 0.5m/s/s equates to 1.1 miles per hour per second, which intuitively seems implausibly high. What were your estimates for the mass and velocity of your, um, expelled reaction mass? My own hasty guesstimation gives an answer on the order of 0.00005ms^-2, assuming a fart-mass of about 1 gram (probably over generous) and a fart-velocity of about 10mph. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 14:26, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I in fact had a far highest guess at the velocity, and a slightly higher mass. Shame, no future in my propulsion theories! SGGH ^ping! 14:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

In all seriousness, the physics here is trivial. But, your answers are wildly inaccurate because you don't know anything about the expelled gas. The only unknowns are its mass and velocity (ergo, the momentum), of the flatus gas. You might be surprised and elated to learn that quantitative studies of flatus gas exist. Test subjects were connected, via rectal tube, to a gas impermeable bag: "Flatus was collected via a rectal tube (Davol, Cranston, Rhode Island, USA) connected to a gas impermeable bag (Quintron, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA). Preliminary studies showed that the anus makes a gas tight seal with a rectal tube, provided that the tube is patent. Each passage was collected in a separate bag, and volume was determined by aspiration into a calibrated syringe." The average gas volume was 107 mL, the expulsion velocity is difficult to estimate; but you can calculate the mass very precisely. This study also links to numerous other quantitative flatus studies, and you can probably estimate a velocity from the pressure gradient and cross-sectional area of the orifice. Surely, when you posted this question on the science desk, you expected a little science? Nimur (talk) 15:11, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Holy shit! They ran a tube from some guy's ass in Cranston, Rhode Island to a bag in Milwaukee, Wisconsin? Damn, that's quite an elaborate way to collect fart gas. --Jayron32 00:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Those are the suppliers and manufacturers for the equipment. The author of that journal article provided the suppliers' contact information in case you want to replicate his work. Nimur (talk) 18:59, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Can't you work out the speed using the temperature? It won't move that fast under pressure, but this is space. — DanielLC 05:40, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

This is rocket science.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Atmospheric pressure is really quite strong. I'd assume that the pressure differential that produces a fart under normal conditions is rather small compared to atmospheric pressure. I.e., the pressure in the rectum of someone who's about ready to fart as of when they got thrown out of an air lock is going to be just a little bit over 1 atm. To calculate the force then produced when that gas is expelled into a vacuum, we just need to multiply that pressure by the area of the opening through which it passes. That area is going to vary from person to person, of course, and also from fart to fart for a given person. But if you use an estimated area of 0.5 cm², that leads to a force of roughly 5N, which produces an accelleration of roughly 0.05 m/s². Red Act (talk) 20:11, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

This might be one of the few times in life where you'd be better off to shart, since it would increase the reaction mass. --Sean 15:23, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Question about Science V Religon

Hi,

I am Protestant and somewhat of a scientist akso. I am not against god but I want to prove him, have you any clues??

As if I would get clues! I Believe in what is preeched to me! However god gave me a free mind and I question the answer's given to me!

It is important to understand that the Word of god in god's own book is true. Now and then someone finds a bit is irrational or just not true. Then we change infallible to allegorical. How do you know you have a free mind?Cuddlyable3 (talk) 14:29, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Many theologians and scientists (some of whom are both) agree on definitions of "God(s)" and "prove" which mean that it is impossible to either prove or disprove the existence of God(s) by scientific reasoning or evidence. You might like to read the article on Non-overlapping magisteria. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 14:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

If you want to use the scientific method - you need to start by defining god, and then you can set about logically deducing some hypothetical consequences that would arise from its existence. Then, you need to set up an experiment and test for these consequences. You also need a control experiment to test the null hypothesis. Finally, you need to analyze the results to determine whether it is likely that god exists. If you feel sufficiently confident, you can boast that you have "proved" something, but most scientists are a little bit more humble than that - we prefer to say we have "shown" or "demonstrated", but we rarely "prove" anything. If you prefer not to use the scientific method, then all bets are off - you can say you've proved or disproved god even without empirical evidence! Nimur (talk) 15:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

If you think that the scientific method will get anywhere on this you could always start with seeing how it gets on with a similar hypothesis, namely "you". Decide what you think it means to say that "you" exist rather than are "just" a collection of chemical reactions. Don't worry, you do exist (or at least conscious beings capable of observing and deciding are assumed in the empirical method so you won't conclude you do not exist unless you make an error). Once you have mastered the way that the scientific method might or might not deal with the existence of a being then you could try on someone else. Finally once you have worked out whether they exist do by all means try God. Many people attempt to do the difficult "God" case without mastering the elementary cases and therefore end up with errors (e.g. "not needed to explain all phenomena" is an invalid argument since it gives an error looking at people). --BozMo talk 15:18, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that you need to start with a solid definition for this term "god" - I don't imagine you'd have too much trouble coming up with something acceptable: "God is defined as an omniscient being with unlimited powers"...or something like that. Then you write down a hypothesis: "There exists a God (defined as:...whatever...)."...woohoo! We have a hypothesis! So far, no problem!

However, the next step in the scientific process is to devise an experiment - or make a prediction for some future event that can be measured experimentally - that would prove your hypothesis. This can't be something like "Look at the amazing nature of the universe - God is self-evident." - that's not gonna fly. It has to be some kind of concrete measurement that has not yet been made that would turn out to be either true (if your hypothesis is true) or false (if it's not).

The second part of that is essential...you can't come up with an experiment that will always come out true - it MUST be "falsifiable". Falsifiability is a crucial part of this step of the process - and if you are serious about this then it's essential that you read and understand our article on that if you'd like your results to have scientific merit.

But this is where you're going to run into trouble. No such experiment has ever been devised that would provide this proof/disproof possibility. The god of common mythology steadfastly refuses to prove his/her/it's existence.

Let's suppose that you predicted that God would make a pink piano-playing Aardvark spontaneously appear in the middle of the Nobel-Prize for Physics award ceremony this year. If this actually happened after you predicted it...then this would widely be regarded as some sort of proof of your "God exists" hypothesis. By our earlier definition, a god would certainly have the power to do that. But the problem is that you can't write: "My hypothesis is proven if a pink piano-playing Aardvark spontaneously appears in the middle of the Nobel prize for Physics ceremony." - because you haven't said what happens if the Aardvark doesn't appear in the specified manner. I'm sure you'd agree that the non-appearance of the aardvark is not a disproof of your hypothesis. Maybe God just didn't feel like making a pink Aardvark? So this experiment can't disprove ("falsify") your hypothesis. So that's not a valid experiment and no serious scientist will support it as an acceptable experiment to back the hypothesis that God exists.

So if we suppose that this particular god does not wish to have his/her/it's existence proven - and if its/her/his powers are literally infinite - then it would be reasonable to presume that he/she/it could adjust the results of any experiment you might devise to produce ambiguous results - or even to manipulate our minds to make us forget the results - or change the course of time such that the experiment was never performed. That means that there is no experiment you could possibly come up with to prove that God DOESN'T exist because God always has the power to make the experiment come out any way he wants - including the "false" way. So no concievable experiment can be performed that could prove god's existance that would pass this "unfalsifiability" test.

The only way to 'trap' a god into being proven would be to limit his/her/it's powers in some manner - find some experiment that the god couldn't tamper with in any way. But that violates our original definition of what a god is - gods are (by definition) infinitely powerful. This means that the only way to devise a solid, falsifiable experiment is to deny the very thing you're attempting to prove.

Hence, you (along with a LOT of other people over the ages) are doomed to failure. There cannot ever be proof of existence of a being with limitless powers unless he/she/it chooses to have his/her/it's existence proven.

Sorry - no experiment to prove the existence of God is possible. SteveBaker (talk) 15:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Steve, Funnily you are obviously right in outcome given that your logic is all over the place. Can you conceive of an experiment to demonstrate your own existence? --BozMo talk 18:05, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Doubting everything is an absurdist position. You can jump out of an airplane and see what I mean. Rational people can agree on some things while testing more controversial subjects. Imagine Reason (talk) 19:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with SteveBaker that no experiment to prove (or disprove) the existence of God is possible. For a very simple reason: God will not allow it. You come to God through faith, not through proof. In fact, if it were possible to prove it (or disprove it) there would be no debate about it, now would there? Or very little. You can easily demonstrate that the earth is round. There are still a few who may cling to the notion that the earth is flat, but they have little or no influence in society. You cannot prove religion true or false. Hence the debate continues endlessly. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:37, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

That's ridiculous! You are saying that no proof is possible by assuming the answer that the proof is attempting to resolve! You are not thinking about falsifiability - which lies at the heart of the scientific method. SteveBaker (talk) 20:42, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm agreeing with you and you're calling it ridiculous? Hard to know where to go from here. :\ →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:51, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

You've reached the same conclusion - but for entirely the wrong reason - that's not the same thing as agreeing with me. SteveBaker (talk) 01:12, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Baseball Bugs you claim as facts "God will not allow it. You come to God through faith.." which is the prejudgement that SteveBaker resists. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:22, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I assume we're trying to have a rational discussion here. If you're throwing logic out the window when God is involved, then I think we can say that science and religion cannot mix. Imagine Reason (talk) 00:40, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I have to disagree with Steve's description of the scientific method. Scientists don't try to prove their theories, they try to disprove them. Proving them is completely impossible - you can show it was right that time, you can't show it will always be right. You come up with a hypothesis, you then come up with an experiment that could prove it wrong and try it out. If, after lots of such experiments, you still haven't managed to disprove you, you assume it it true. --Tango (talk) 22:45, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Technically, that's true - but you only have to put the word "NOT" into your hypothesis and you can go off and prove your original idea rather than having to disprove it. So instead of having a hard time proving the hypothesis that there is a god - you can have an equally hard time DISproving the hypothesis that there is NOT a god. The result is the same...although it sounds much better your way! SteveBaker (talk) 01:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I think I !agree with you... ;) I think a distinction needs to be drawn between a theory as a whole and it's various parts and their implications. Logically, that distinction just boils down to applying basic rules for combining ANDs, ORs and NOTs to get from one to the other, so is pretty moot, but conceptually the distinction is more significant. The thing you try and disprove isn't the entire negation, but rather one part of it or an implication of one part of it, which is usually a far simpler statement, which makes it easier to test. I wouldn't know where to start trying to prove the general theory of relativity, but I know exactly how to try and disprove the hypothesis that when I hold a pencil above the ground and then let go of it it will fall down. --Tango (talk) 07:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

On the scientific method Tango I think you need to read someone other than Popper, Thomas Samuel Kuhn for example. Falsifiability is only partly right, although it is part of the story. But I am a bit stuck on why you (Steve) think the existence of God is an empirically testable thing when apparently you concede that your own existence could not be established against the null hypothesis that you are just a chemical phenomenon. A guy called Hans Frei wrote a famous book in 1974 which pointed out that the perversion of Christianity from human meaning to (blatantly wrong) pseudoscience was post enlightenment and mainly nineteenth century. So some enthusiastic early scientists savaged religious belief into bad science. That does not mean the religious belief was not correct in its own right. Since at least 1963 (Honest to God) mainstream Christians have agreed that in a sense God does not exist (nothing in the universe which can be prodded with a pencil is God). Discussion on testability and Popper's view of science belongs in the fourth form where it is taught. --BozMo talk 07:17, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The comment makes unfounded assumptions regarding my reading, my thoughts and my education, none of which is true. --Tango (talk) 07:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Fair enough, apologies I mixed up some of Steve's comments with yours (but it is a fair risk in this kind of mele). --BozMo talk 07:41, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Steve thinks the existence of god(s) is testable any more than I do... --Tango (talk) 08:33, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - I went to a lot of trouble to prove that the existence of an omnipotent god is impossible to test. I have never claimed that my own existence could not be proved or disproved. To the contrary - I think it's a relatively simple experiment with perfectly acceptable true and false outcomes. Assuming you define "me" as a human, on earth - then the experimenter merely needs to enumerate all humans on earth - examine each one - and find if one of them meets the criteria laid down in the definition of "SteveBaker". There is nothing unfalsifiable there. Sure, there are experimental details to iron out - and it's a tough experiment - but it's definitely do-able in principle. SteveBaker (talk) 15:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know if you are being deliberately obtuse for irony/fun or really don't get the question. I cannot tell with you. Do you think that Human Beings are in any way capable of acting in a way not in line with known physical laws, or do you think they are entirely determined? If you thought they have a soul which disobeys quantum chemistry you would be a fruitcake which I do not believe for a second. But if you think they are completely determined why on earth do you persist in believing in the myth of "humans "rather than just view the earth as a set of simultaneous partial differential equations? Is not "humanity" and every part of that description an unneeded hypothesis to understand the world? (This is intended as a Reduction ad absurdum of course; the absurdity being that "explanation not needed" is relevant to the existence of beings) --BozMo talk 18:50, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Humans are part of the universe, I don't see a contradiction there. I expect human behaviour can be modelled mathematically (that there are laws of physics that everything obeys is the fundamental assumption of science, and has held up pretty well so far), although we don't yet have the appropriate models to do it with any precision and, even if we did, measuring the initial conditions would be very difficult without killing the human you are interested in (and probably even then). --Tango (talk) 19:51, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I'll break up your somewhat confusing post into chunks for the sake of making a coherent reply:

• Do you think that Human Beings are in any way capable of acting in a way not in line with known physical laws, - No, there is no evidence that any part of a human being is anything other than 'normal matter' - so physical laws apply.
• ...or do you think they are entirely determined? - That's not an 'either/or' question. The laws of physics do not imply determinism. Quantum theory and Chaos theory both imply a fundamental randomness in all matter that means that there is no determinism. But that applies to a lump of rock just as much as it does to a human being. However, I'm pretty sure that's not what you're trying to get at here. You are probably asking about "free will" - and that's an interesting question. It's my opinion that there is no free will - BUT that our brains are wired such as to give our conscious mind the illusion that there is free will. That wiring is so firmly emplaced that it is impossible to cease to exercise "free will" even if we know at an intellectual level that this is simply a consequence of interactions of atoms and forces that are 'mechanical' in nature.
• If you thought they have a soul which disobeys quantum chemistry you would be a fruitcake which I do not believe for a second. - Indeed, disobeying quantum theory is not likely.
• But if you think they are completely determined why on earth do you persist in believing in the myth of "humans "rather than just view the earth as a set of simultaneous partial differential equations? - Again, you are supposing these are opposing views, when they are not. If I believed that humans were completely determined (which is a fair approximation at the macro-scale) that would not prevent me from viewing the universe at a range of convenient scales. At the scale of atoms, talking about human beings is very tough...but at the scale of objects larger than a fraction of a millimeter, using the word "Human Being" to summarize an insane amount of math/physics/chemistry is a handy convenience. We can simultaneously hold mental models of the world at various scales - and at some scales "Human Being" is a convenient short-hand for a complex phenomenon.
• Is not "humanity" and every part of that description an unneeded hypothesis to understand the world? - Well, in theory, you could describe 'the world' without this degree of abstraction - some very large pile of quantum-theoretic equations is a sufficient description. It's just not very convenient. This is no different than that we use words like "City" and "Nation" as a way to summarize the details of large numbers of humans.
• (This is intended as a Reduction ad absurdum of course; the absurdity being that "explanation not needed" is relevant to the existence of beings) - I don't see the absurdity. I think you are trying to make an argument from a set of assumptions of how people have to think - that simply does not apply to most people. You can take the phrase "Human Being" and make it inapplicable. If I take a sample of your blood - is that blood "Human"? If I take a hydrogen atom from your big toe - is that atom "Human"? How could you tell? These questions are only tricky if you insist on embodying words with solid meanings. Words like "human" are merely a convenient shorthand for a complex concept. Something is only "human" if we decide that that set of symbols on the page apply to it. That consideration tells you a great deal about the applicability of those symbols - but it tells you nothing whatever about what a human being is.

SteveBaker (talk) 20:13, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

This helps me to understand your position. thanks. So we are heading toward "Human being" being a useful interpretation of a complex phenomenon which is fine because as a scientist you are not an uncompromising reductionist, you regard parallel descriptions as allowed and insist only on consistency, not on primacy of one description, yes? --BozMo talk 20:40, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it was an interpretation of the phenomenon, it's just a name for it. It is essential in day-to-day science to accept certain things as given without worrying about how they work, for example chemists rarely worry about the nature of the nucleus of an atom because it isn't important for what they do. Similarly, psychologists don't usually care about the nature of neurons, etc., because it isn't important for what they do, and neurologists don't care about the finer points of biochemistry, and so on. I wouldn't say those are parallel descriptions, they are just useful approximations to the actual description. --Tango (talk) 23:42, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Way back in one of my earliest responses to the OP, I mentioned the null hypothesis - and testing it with a control experiment - that's an important part of the scientific method. This is exactly what you guys are talking about when you're discussing the negations and logical inversions of the original hypothesis. A formal method for such analysis does exist. Nimur (talk) 07:08, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Absolutely. When we want to prove a hypothesis we often actually do so by disproving the null hypothesis. That is, indeed, exactly what we are talking about. We aren't really discussing the scientific method, on which I am quite sure we agree, but rather the best way to describe it. --Tango (talk) 07:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

This discussion seems to postulate, and be limited to, the God of Abraham. To really do it right, the experiment needs to go beyond monotheism and also look into large polytheistic religions, the most obvious of which is Hinduism. There's no evidence that any one religion has the "right" definition of God, or the "whole picture" of God. Each religion tries to form a concept of what God is, in terms they can sort-of understand. There's a lot more similarity between Hinduism and Catholicism, for example, than either religion would likely be willing to admit. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 16:02, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

No - you're quite wrong. It doesn't matter - it doesn't change the argument one iota. If your definition of a "god" allows for infinite powers - then there is no possible unfalsifiable experiment and science cannot prove or disprove the existence of any "god" by that definition. It doesn't matter which religion or whether the god has six arms or lots of tentacles or is inexplicably fond of ham and pineapple pizza (mhhbb). The rules of scientific debate are the same.

Of course if you have a definition for some kind of "god" that has some solid limitations on the god's power - then perhaps there is something that can be done. But there aren't many religions where that truly is the case.

If you had (for example) a "river god" that was constrained to living in a river - and by whose divine presence alone caused that river to (say) have life-extending properties - the fountain of youth or whatever. Then you could perform a statistical study of people who drank from every river on the planet - find the one with the life-giving properties - perform extensive chemical analysis of the water - discover no other possible means for the water to provide their unexpected vigor - and thereby deduce the existence of a river god living there. This experiment has the countervailing proposition that if the water from NONE of rivers on Earth appear to have any special life-giving properties - then there cannot possibly be a river god. That's a valid experiment and would solidly prove or disprove the hypothesis.

But when you have a god who has totally unlimited powers - he/she might choose NOT to live in the river - or NOT to provide life-giving properties to the water - or alter the minds of the researchers to make them think the results came out false. Then you're back to unfalsifiability again - and you don't have a solid scientific hypothesis because it has zero predictive power. SteveBaker (talk) 16:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

(I moved this post to the end of my response: Please do not intersperse your comments between paragraphs of other peoples' posts - it's very rude.) SteveBaker (talk) 20:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I can. Omniscience and omnipotence cannot coexist, because a god that doesn't know what he'll do is not omniscient, but one who know everything he'll ever do cannot change the future and is thus not omnipotent. Imagine Reason (talk) 19:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

That's nonsense. If you are literally omnipotent - you can do literally anything - being everywhere at once - and even everywhere in time at once is just a part of having literally unlimited abilities. It is rare indeed to find a religion that allows for hard limitations in the abilities of their gods. Your argument is akin to "Can god create a rock so heavy that he can't lift it?" - there are indeed paradoxes inherent in postulating literally infinite capabilities. The ability to perfectly see the future and the ability to change the future are also incompatible paradoxes - but if you believe in all this, then paradoxes go with the territory. If you wish to claim that the capabilities of god(s) have to be limited in some manner in order to avoid paradoxes - then you have some serious religious issues to deal with! SteveBaker (talk) 20:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

You don't solve paradoxes by claiming without basis that something--e.g., your god--is not limited by it. Imagine Reason (talk) 17:25, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

This is why religion and science don't mix. To someone who believes in a personal God, an atheist can make logical arguments all day and it won't make any difference, because those arguments run counter to the believer's own experience and faith. You can logically argue that God is not needed for the existence of the universe, but that does not prove the non-existence of God (or gods). And it comes back to the core question: Who or what is God? And that's the unanswerable question. The best you can do with such an experiment is to say, "IF this is what God is, THEN this-or-that hypothesis about God may be true (or false)." →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 16:41, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Our OP is specifically asking about ways to prove the existence of god using scientific principles. Such debate is equally valid for atheists and theists because if you are doing this right, you have to start out with an open mind and let the results of your experiment determine what you believe. This thread is not about whether god or gods exist or not - it's about whether you can use scientific principles to prove that. Logical arguments are at the core of this question because without such arguments, no scientific proof can even be considered. Sadly, (as I hope I have shown) it is conclusively impossible to come up with such an experiment. SteveBaker (talk) 20:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

And not all conceptions of god involve omnipotence. Suppose somebody worships an idol, or all instances of a particular species of animal - in that case, it is easy to prove that god exists. Clearly, you only need to observe the thing which they define as their god. A perfectly acceptable religion might be one which worships a pet cat, which can absolutely be shown to exist. Do you want to say their religion is wrong? You can call it a stupid religion, but that would be nothing but insulting to its believers. Actually, it's a much more straightforward religion than most. And, it's easy to prove that its god does actually exist. "Do as the cat does. Eat, sleep, purr." I don't know why gods or religions necessarily have to be abstract or supernatural concepts - that's really only an aspect of judeo-christian or buddhism/hindu/dharmic religions and their particular choice of definition for "divine". Nimur (talk) 18:16, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Not all religions claim omnipotence - but most do. The Catholic church for example, in their "Catechism" state this quite clearly: "We believe that his might is universal, for God who created everything also rules everything and can do everything."[2]...so the Catholic god (at least) is unfalsifiable. If our OP is thinking of some other god with dramatically smaller powers - then perhaps there are experiments that could be devised. Odin - in Norse mythology is a god - with extensive powers - yet at Ragnarok he will have to fight Fenrir and will die. Evidently, he can't just snap his fingers and have Fenrir disappear - this god evidently has limits - and perhaps we could think of a falsifiable experiment to prove (or disprove) the existence of Odin...but definitely not the Catholic god. That's not because the Catholic god is in any way more "real" - to the contrary - scientifically speaking, unfalsifiable things are the subject of Occam's razor and are generally considered to be less "real" than things like string theory that are theoretically falsifiable. SteveBaker (talk) 20:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Once you start discussing the gods of particular religions it becomes more complicated - what, precisely, is "the Catholic god"? Is it just a being with the powers described in the Bible (in which case, you are right) or is it a being with those powers that has done the things described in the Bible? In the latter case, we can find falsifiable claims. For example, the Bible says (indirectly, but quite clearly) that God created about 6000 years ago (I know most Catholics choose to ignore that bit, their inconsistency is their problem), that is verifiably false. Unless we assume God is intentionally trying to trick us (which is within his power and not is kind of consistent with his behaviour described in the Bible - he does like to test people's faith, but such trickery isn't described in the Bible [which would kind of defeat the object, I guess]), then we have a falsifiable (and false) statement about the Catholic god. If you allow omnipotence and lies of omission in divinely inspired texts, then it is completely unfalsifiable, but get rid of either of them and we're ok. --Tango (talk) 01:28, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I picked the catholics for a very specific reason. Of all religions, they are the most careful to document their terms - to define everything very carefully. The document I linked to that says that the Catholic God is omnipotent is right there on the Vatican web site - it's easy to find, it's written in clear english, it's unambiguous. What, precisely, is "the Catholic god"? It's defined by whatever the church and the pope says it is...you can just read the catechisms - and then you know. It's not the powers defined in the bible - it's clear and unambiguous. Of course some individual might choose to ignore or disbelieve parts of the catechism - but then they are denying a part of the churches teachings and they aren't a proper catholic (as defined by the church themselves). It's not so easy in other religions - but still - almost none of them are prepared to accept limitations of any kind on the powers of their gods. That's probably because there has been a kind of religious "arms race" between gods over human history. Each early religion needed to show that their "rain god" could kick the butt of the next tribe's "mountain god" - so the list of claimed powers grows over time. Nobody would want to admit that their god could not under any circumstances save your sick child or prevent your crops from failing. So the religions that survived this process are the ones which claim complete omnipotence for their deity. They rail at questions like "Could your god create a rock so heavy that he couldn't lift it?" - giving all sorts of wishy-washy answers.

Your example of the creation of the earth (6000 years ago) is NOT falsifiable. We do radio-carbon dating of objects and PROVE that they are more than 6000 years old - and the nut jobs say "Well, God wanted to challenge your faith - so he deliberately created objects with the right amount of radio-carbon in them to make your experiments come out that way."...thereby destroying falsifiability. That's the problem at the heart of this. Unless you also limit your god's powers such that he can't create objects with controlled amounts of radiocarbon in them (and so that he can't influence the results of a mass-spectrometer - and so he can't alter the minds of the experimenter - and so he can't cause their results to be published with numerous misprints)...you can't falsify that claim.

Claiming that "God wouldn't seek to trick us" is a valid option - but it has to be written into the hypothesis: "A god is a being that has infinite powers who absolutely guarantees that he will never use them in the following ways: ....<long list>". That imposes limits on the infinite power of god - and most religions simply will not accept that. I often argue with the more rabid religious nuts that they have no way to know that the god they believe in isn't cheating on them. Perhaps he's lying to us all the time? How do we KNOW that "the devil" isn't actually the good guy? Some of the things that god traditionally demands that we don't do - but the devil supposedly wants us to do - are actually rather cool. If we can't covet our neighbors oxen - how will we have aspirations to improve ourselves? SteveBaker (talk) 15:26, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Another example of what you're describing would be The Church of Baseball. And it has the advantage that it's not as likely to die as your pet cat. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 18:43, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

AHA! The dimly-lit bulb finally comes on. You worship your cat. But it dies. You can't worship your cat anymore, right? Yes. You can. You can say its spirit continues to live and continues to watch over you... and that it will return someday. And there, in a nutshell, is the core premise of a number of religions. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 19:32, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Just to raise another common theological point: if you could prove God existed, what would be the point of faith? It's only faith because the evidence isn't really very concrete. No one needs faith in, say, electricity. To say you believe in electricity is not very much of a demonstration of personal commitment. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:14, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

If you want to "demonstrate personal commitment" then go out and do good works. If you believe in electricity then go make the world a better place with electricity. That's the point of faith. Faith divorced from works is meaningless. You can find that sentiment in the Bible, but it's no more a religious sentiment than "don't commit adultery". Faith, like morality, is a secular concept that's been co-opted by religion. If you think it matters whether God exists then you're missing the point. What matters is that he ain't solving our problems for us. That much is empirically obvious. -- BenRG (talk) 22:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

That's the "old man on a cloud" theory, i.e. some kind of direct interventionist. God works through people. So does Satan. That's the concept, anyway. Maybe you haven't heard the story about the guy on a rooftop during a flood? →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 22:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Please attend closer to the OP's posting. It is not relevant to discuss Catholicism, Polytheism, Hinduism, a river god, idol worship, pet cats, church of baseball (have I missed anyone?) when the OP's explicit standpoint is "I am Protestant". Whatever lies behind that declaration must provide all the evidence the OP will probably ever find. We can't know whether that declaration is the result of a personal epiphany (apparently not), social conformity or an upbringing that the OP is now questioning. An answer to the OP that is appropriately couched in terms relevant to Protestantism is in the quoted words of apostle Thomas: Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails and stick my finger into the print of the nails and stick my hand into his side, I will certainly not believe[the resurrection]. Protestants frown on such objectivity when they quote "Blessed are those who do not see and yet believe." - John 20:24-29. Therein lies the OP's quandary. I think the OP wants that blessing promised by christianity and that the Ref. Desk. have no clue how to prove that it exists for him. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:49, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The OP never defined what "protestant" means, or how he interprets it. Needless to say, that word can run the gamut from atheism to biblical literalism - many people describe many different beliefs under the single umbrella term of "protestantism". I think it has been relevant to discuss how different interpretations of god will yield a different degree of falsifiability. The easiest are the biblical literalists - they make factual claims that can be shown to be contradictory. So, for their definition of god, it is very easy to disprove much of their faith (whether they want to accept this fact or not). On the other hand, as the interpretations become allegorical and vague, it becomes harder and harder to prove or disprove anything. Nimur (talk) 01:39, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Protestantism with a capital "P" means Lutheranism and though much fragmented by schisms since Martin Luther (1483-1546), it consistently relies on the Bible as source and can not encompass atheism. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:13, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

That is how you define it. By virtue of the fact that protestants reject external doctrine, they are free to make up their own definitions for their theological ideas. I know many self-identifying protestant atheists. Do you want to tell them they are not allowed to be protestants because they aren't Lutheran? Nimur (talk) 15:32, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't get that far - I would tell them they aren't protestants (it's not a matter of being allowed or not, it's just a fact) because they aren't Christian. Protestantism is a branch of Christianity, which involves believing in God and Christ in some form. --Tango (talk) 19:59, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Nimur, the way I define Protestantism is the way that history and Wikipedia define it. Is it possible that your "self-identifying protestant atheist" friends are as confused as people who say they don't believe in God and do believe in Jesus ? The foregoing two wikilinks may enlighten them.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 15:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Then the answer is easy: No, you can't prove God exists. And you can't prove God does not exist. Does that about cover it? →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 00:49, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Protestantism says that god chooses not to use all of his powers - preferring to work by coercion of people - but the religion doesn't go so far as to say that he isn't omnipotent or even that he won't ever use these powers. The church proclaims truth of the bible - so all of the various miracles described there are held to have literally happened. Ergo, you're still talking about an omnipotent being - and falsifiability is a problem. Hence, our OP cannot devise a suitable experiment to test that hypothesis. SteveBaker (talk) 01:38, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Protestantism encourages the concept of free will, with God supposedly taking a laissez faire approach to a certain extent (though not to the pretty much totally hands-off concept of Deism). As far as God's powers, I would say Protestants go even farther than Catholics, who portray the various saints as being kind of an extension of the Church's earthly hierarchy, and Catholics pray to "specialist" saints (vaguely analogous to Hinduism's polytheism) apparently on the grounds that God is "too busy". Protestantism, however, maintains that God is omniscient and omnipresent, therefore there is no need for this "saint" stuff. But since God apparently restrains His powers to allow free will, that does kind of throw a spanner into the experimental thesis, yes? Because it means that sometimes God intervenes and sometimes He doesn't, so how could you tell? P.S. I have the answer to that question, if anyone's curious. :) →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 04:00, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Depends on the sort of Protestantism. One of the most dominant strains, Calvinism, has in theory no room at all for the concept of free will — even our sins are God's determined will, though that doesn't keep them from being our fault. There is nothing logically wrong with this; it just doesn't seem fair. But for the Calvinist, I suppose it's our concept of "fair" that's defective here.

Of course in practice few of the faithful really worry about this. It's extremely difficult to tell the difference between a Methodist and a Presbyterian, even though in theory the former should believe in free will and the latter should not. --Trovatore (talk) 21:06, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

To Baseball Bugs: I am curious. How could I tell? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:28, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

If God intervenes on whim, then there's no way to prove or disprove certain religious tenets, such as the so-called "power of prayer" - because if person A prays for something and doesn't get it, while person B prays for something and does get it, does that demonstrate that apparent help from God is merely random chance? Or does it merely demonstrate that God is whimsical? And if God is whimsical, then you can't apply science, because you can't predict what He will do. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 06:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

There would be no point in worshipping something like that. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 07:31, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Religion is more than just being "about God" or gods. It's also a cohesive force in the community, something that's shared. The usual answer to the apparent whimsy of God is that "He works in mysterious ways" or "sometimes the answer is No". Both of these apparently contradict the "ask and ye shall receive" promise. Maybe the problem is that it's "the wrong question." Because if you ask for spiritual strength, and are open to it, then the answer is always "yes". →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 13:15, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

God is not a vending machine. If he was required to grant any specific request, it would be a challenge to his omnipotence as he would not have the power to deny the request. Googlemeister (talk) 18:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

This link may be relevant

Voltage

Hello. How is there a positive voltage between one end of exposed copper strip and another end of copper covered in paper towel soaked with zinc sulfate solution? If Cu and Zn²⁺ were to oxidize and reduce respectively, the redox reaction is not spontaneous. Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 14:52, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Is this to do with confusion between electric potential - which exists in the absence of any current, and voltage measured in a complete circuit - what you describe isn't a completed electrical circuit. ? .83.100.251.196 (talk) 17:30, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Hang on a minute.. there would be a voltage difference if zinc wire was in copper sulphate solution at one end.

There is (practically) no reaction between Zn2+ and Cu. So no voltage. ? (If it's your teacher again that told you this - is it possible that you misheard?)83.100.251.196 (talk) 17:32, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

The article Battery (electricity) will help.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 22:56, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

New AIDS Vaccine

Reports indicate the new vaccine reduces the chances of getting AIDS by 30 percent. If the clinical trials are typical, then the researchers hired a bunch of healthy people and had a control group that didn't get the experimental vaccine. They attempted to infect both groups with HIV and measured results accordingly. My question is: who in their right mind would volunteer for such a study? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.229.89.46 (talk)

Perhaps prisoners who are under a life sentence and feel they have nothing to lose? →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 15:52, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

If you have a large enough group - you don't need to deliberately attempt to infect them (which would, of course, be unethical). If you picked a large number of people in an already "at risk" group (intravenous drug users, gay men, people living in rural Africa, etc) then enough of them would get an HIV infection "normally" to make the experiment valid without exposing them to any more risk than they were already prepared to accept. However, you do need a much larger group that way because you need a large enough sample to be able to assume that the exposure of both the vaccinated and control groups is about the same. But at least you're not doing anything unethical in the process. SteveBaker (talk) 16:11, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting forcing prisoners to do it. However, what's needed here would be an answer to the question of how any vaccine is tested ethically. The answer to that general question would likely supply the answer to this specific one. →Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots 16:16, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It is a different scenario than other vaccines, where there is no huge difference between risky and safe behavior. How can the testing work at all? The scientists give people a shot and tell them: "now, just go around doing whatever you know, but don't bother too much about protection, so we can know whether this vaccine is working and not. After that, we can publish our work in Science or Nature and even get a Wikipedia article." And, what does happen if the test persons start to ask what this whole AIDS thing is all about and take precaution against it?--Quest09 (talk) 16:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

If you tell both groups the same thing, it doesn't matter much what you say, you just look for statistical differences between the groups' results. As you note "do not practice safer sex" is unethical. But in a large at-risk population, there are enough who wouldn't without substantial advice to do so (if at all), and the rates of condom use (and mis/non-use) in both groups is the same, so that would not affect the difference of HIV/AIDS rates between the groups. DMacks (talk) 16:48, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Let's be very clear about this: they did not not not deliberately try to infect anybody. In fact they went out of their way to make sure that all the subjects were thoroughly informed on how to avoid getting HIV. To even further reduce the chance of a conflict of interest, the advice was given by an independent medical team who were not directly involved with the scientists conducting the study. The assertions in this section are pretty damn close to BLP violations, even considering this is a non-mainspace page. Looie496 (talk) 17:23, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Furthermore, if you think about events such as the HIV trial in Libya, you might realize that loose talk like this is not harmless, it can have deadly consequences for the people involved. Looie496 (talk) 17:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

As yet another followup, I want to clarify that the last comment was aimed at everybody who has written in this section, not specifically at DMacks. Looie496 (talk) 18:22, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Gee - thanks! How the heck does discussing scientific approaches to doing vaccine trials have anything whatever to do with WP:BLP? Please go back and re-read my post - then apologize for such a vile and unwarranted accusation. SteveBaker (talk) 20:11, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I think Looie496's point is not so much that WP:BLP policy is violated here but that the ethics of any HIV/AIDS trials are liable to be perceived differently in societies where researchers have to work, and that is a reason to be circumspect to avoid giving ammunition to viewpoints hostile to their work. Looie496 aimed his caution to everybody but I don't see any accusation of loose talk made specifically to SteveBaker's post. SteveBaker could rightly say that such an accusation would be unwarranted if it had been made.Cuddlyable3 (talk) 23:24, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually I do apologize to Steve and to DMacks, neither of whom made incorrect statements about how the experiment was done. The BLP issue in this thread is that the original question implicitly accused the people who carried out the experiment of doing something that would have been totally unethical, and other comments assumed a lesser level of unethical behavior. There are far too many people in this world who will jump to the conclusion that scientists are evil given the slightest reason; we have to be careful not to feed into that when there is no basis for it. Looie496 (talk) 02:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

• Actually, I didn't accused any one of being unethical. I was - under the supposition that there must be a difference - asking how an AIDS vaccine could be tested ethically. Furthermore, I have to point out that if someone else jumps to conclusion due to my words that is enterily their mistake and problem. This fact cannot restrict my liberty. --Quest09 (talk) 17:25, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Looie496 was referring to the OP i.e. 76.229.89.46 who did say "They attempted to infect both groups with HIV and measured results accordingly" which is an extremely offensive accusation of the people involved even if it was out of pure ignorance rather then malice. I presume this is not you. BLP does cover all pages and accusing a specific even if unnamed group of researchers of intentionally infecting people with HIV (or for that matter doing anything unethical) is a problem BLP wise. By editing wikipedia, you do agree to obey wikipedia policies no matter how they 'restrict your liberty', if you don't accept that then I respectfully suggest you don't edit wikipedia. In general terms it's best to not suggest what people are doing if you don't know. Your answer does appear to have inadvertently presumed that the people would behave unethically. E.g. "And, what does happen if the test persons start to ask what this whole AIDS thing is all about and take precaution against it". Et al. This is rather offensive since it suggests the researchers are simply testing these poor ignorant people and hoping they don't ask hard questions. Modern research does not work like that. Nor is this something unique to HIV. If you are testing a drug to lower cholesterol or reduce the risk of a MI you either inform your patients yourself or use patient who are already well aware of dietary and other lifestyle modifications they should be doing. You don't collect a bunch of people and keep them in the dark about other ways to try and improve their conditions and test the drug on these poor saps. Nil Einne (talk) 18:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

• My answer just presumes that they went through a different way than the testing of other vaccines. It is not offensive in any way and I was not breaking any Wikipedia policies. I just said that it is not my problem if other people would jump to conclusions. There is not Wikipedia policy against that, is there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Quest09 (talk • contribs) 15:13, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

What I want to know is where did the idea that deliberate infections are used to test vaccines come from? As far as I'm aware few vaccines are tested by deliberate infection of the subjects with the virulent agent being tested against after vaccination. Even Edward Jenner#Smallpox who's methods are often considered not entirely ethical nowadays used variolation to test his vaccines, which while a deliberate infection of sorts was an existing practice intended to provide immunity via a less severe form of the disease. (In fact as section d mentions, it wasn't necessarily the best methodology since it's possible it wouldn't have protected against natural infections.) AFAIK, even influenza vaccines often don't use deliberate infections, for example the way this [3] recommends deliberate infections as a testing methodology makes it sound like it is uncommon presently and this [4] says "Malaria is unusual in that the efficacy of vaccines can be tested in small numbers of individuals by deliberate infection with Plasmodium falciparum". In any case as others above have mentioned and this [5] mentions, deliberate infection is not used with highly dangerous pathogens. Edit: We do have a vaccine trial but it doesn't have much useful information Nil Einne (talk) 08:55, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Mining in volcanically active areas

How does mining look like in volcanically active areas? I had taken a look at articles like mining and mining in Japan, but didn't learn anything about the effects of tectonic and volcanic activity.--Mátyás (talk) 18:32, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It's drilling, not mining, but check out Sidoarjo mud flow for what can go wrong. --Sean 15:32, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

There are a few minor differences (for example, groundwater can be hot instead of cold), but mostly it's just like mining anywhere else. --Carnildo (talk) 00:15, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Food poisoning from protein-less foods

How might it occur? The only scenario I can imagine is harmful bacteria eating up nonharmful ones. Imagine Reason (talk) 19:15, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

How many foods are actually protein-less? Are there not proteins in most things we eat, many of which humans can't digest?--Leon (talk) 19:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there are any whole foods with no protein at all. Fruit tends to have a lower fraction of protein on a per-calorie basis than pretty much any other category of whole food, but even fruit has some protein. You can, however, have proteinless refined food products, such as sugar or oil. I don't see how you could get food poisoning from sugar. Oil goes rancid, but I'm not sure eating rancid oil counts as food poisoning. Red Act (talk) 19:43, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, though it is not possible to suffer from food poisoning per se from lack of proteins (food poisoning is caused by pathogens), it may be possible to experience adverse effects from lack of protein in the diet. There are 22 standard amino acids which compose almost all, if not all, polypeptides. Humans can biosynthesize fourteen of these; the other eight (called essential amino acids), must be obtained by from food. This is done by breaking down existing proteins in food and converting them into amino acids. Intelligentsium 00:31, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but malnutrition is rather different from food poisoning. Red Act (talk) 01:37, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Food poisoning doesn't really have any direct relationship to protein at all. Most proteins are broken down in the stomach and never make it into the bloodstream in appreciable quantities; the few that survive the stomach (such as keratin) are indigestible. Many venoms -- injected into the bloodstream by a bite or sting -- are protein-based, but toxins absorbed through the digestive system are chemically different. Looie496 (talk) 17:59, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I think the OP was thinking about food poisoning having an indirect relationship to protein, i.e., thinking that the pathogens that produce food poisoning would need a source of protein in order to survive and multiply. However, I don't think that's the case (although biology is not my strong suit). For example, I had been thinking you probably couldn't get food poisoning from sugar. But left to sit long enough, mold will grow in an opened bottle of soda, in which the only available nutrients are sugar and water. So it does seem like you could get food poisoning from drinking a (proteinless) old opened bottle of soda, that you didn't notice that there was mold growing in. Red Act (talk) 18:43, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

But without know what species of mold could grow in those conditions, you will not know if those molds would be toxic to people. Actually, being toxic is not the same thing as food poisoning is it? Googlemeister (talk) 14:01, 28 September 2009 (UTC)