Starting Over, Fight 1

Continental Drift vs Vital essence theory, descriptions edited from Wikipedea originals to fit this web site

Continental Drift: Frank Bursley Taylor had proposed the concept in a Geological Society of America meeting in 1908 after working on a jigsaw puzzle in between sessions, and published his work in the GSA Bulletin in June 1910, once the puzzle was finished. It was by all accounts a very large puzzle. Abraham Ortelius, Francis Bacon, Antonio Snider-Pellegrini, Benjamin Franklin, and others had noted earlier that the shapes of continents on either side of the Atlantic
Ocean (most notably, Africa and South America) seem to fit together. Some sources suggest that they may have assisted with the puzzle at the GSA meeting of '08, or at least seen the puzzle in stores. The similarity of southern continent fossil faunae and some geological formations had led a small number of Southern hemisphere geologists to conjecture as early as 1900 that all the continents had once been joined into a supercontinent now known as Pangaea. How they came to the conclusion that the name was Pangaea is suspicious however, as there was no forwarding address. *This theory was superceded by Plate Techtonics which provided a valid forwarding address.

Vital essence theory (Vitalism) as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is,
1. a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from physicochemical forces
2. a doctrine that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is in some part self-determining
In a nut shell vitalism says you need a soul to be alive. Vitalism is often criticized for not being testable, and non-scientific. And it is in fact hard to prove, or disprove in the real world. In the Simpsons however, we find our answer. After selling his soul to Milhouse, Bart is still alive. Automatic doors however no longer will work for him, as well as other problems. So, clearly a soul is not required to live. Those intelligent design people may be right, with enough smarts chemistry can do anything.

Lack of Posting Recently

In a comment tommyp said the following:

Sadly, BadAnswer seems to have come up against an insurmountable obstacle at the start of the new season. Perhaps he has become too overloaded with work. Maybe he feels he has become too important to share his BadAnswers with the rest of us. Mayhap he has simply lost interest.
In any case, all we need is a week or two to vote on something. Let the random generation thingy loose, and we'll sort the rest out!

Perhaps tommyp does not follow politics, and is unaware that there is an election going on, and has been for about a year, which is good, because the actual voting is only 10 months away. There is stuff to vote on that is not on the internet.

But in all seriousness (not that the president of the US is not serious) there have been insurmountable obstacles of late. See, work has been busier, but more importantly, my neighbors wireless network has been down. We have spoken, and he will get it up and running again soon. In related news, I got a free access point a few days ago which I can hook up as a repeater to get an even better signal throughout my house, hopefully strong enough to get online with my Wii. Which could then again cause a slowness to the posts here at badanswer.

But in any event, I will be starting the new season again, consider the previous post to have been a pilot. So, on Monday get ready to vote for science, and if you are in one of the 20 states participating in "Super Tuesday" you can vote then as well. I recommend Ron Paul.

I look forward to hearing from you on Monday.

Superceded Theories, Fight 1, Round 1: Continental Drift vs Vital essence theory (Vitalism)

Continental Drift vs Vital essence theory
descriptions edited from Wikipedea originals to better fit this web site

Continental Drift: Frank Bursley Taylor had proposed the concept in a Geological Society of America meeting in 1908 after working on a jigsaw puzzle in between sessions, and published his work in the GSA Bulletin in June 1910, once the puzzle was finished. It was by all accounts a very large puzzle. Abraham Ortelius, Francis Bacon, Antonio Snider-Pellegrini, Benjamin Franklin, and others had noted earlier that the shapes of continents on either side of the Atlantic Ocean (most notably, Africa and South America) seem to fit together. Some sources suggest that they may have assisted with the puzzle at the GSA meeting of '08, or at least seen the puzzle in stores. The similarity of southern continent fossil faunae and some geological formations had led a small number of Southern hemisphere geologists to conjecture as early as 1900 that all the continents had once been joined into a supercontinent now known as Pangaea. How they came to the conclusion that the name was Pangaea is suspicious however, as there was no forwarding address. *This theory was superceded by Plate Techtonics which provided a valid forwarding address.

Vital essence theory (Vitalism) as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is,
1. a doctrine that the functions of a living organism are due to a vital principle distinct from physicochemical forces
2. a doctrine that the processes of life are not explicable by the laws of physics and chemistry alone and that life is in some part self-determining
In a nut shell vitalism says you need a soul to be alive. Vitalism is often criticized for not being testable, and non-scientific. And it is in fact hard to prove, or disprove in the real world. In the Simpsons however, we find our answer. After selling his soul to Milhouse, Bart is still alive. Automatic doors however no longer will work for him, as well as other problems. So, clearly a soul is not required to live. Those intelligent design people may be right, with enough smarts chemistry can do anything.