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Questions related from Barry Turner
Two conflicting theories suggest on the one hand that the complex biological nature of Earth is rare or even unique in the universe or conversly that life is inevitable just about everywhere,...
28 December 2018 3,441 4 View
Are our ethical and moral rules simply a human manifestation of the instinct to survive? Is morality simply a ritualised set of behaviours centered around survival of the group or...
06 November 2017 3,628 10 View
"Psychiatry is in decline and is becoming obsolete, a victim of its own psychobabble and increasingly mind-numbing research, understandable to the elite few". ...
08 August 2017 2,366 7 View
In the last 117 years the population of the US has only once declined against a steady background of population growth. The world was hit by a massive influenza pandemic during that period but...
04 August 2017 4,162 5 View
I have just spent two decades thinking we had a supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Now I hear its a Boson Star. Is this right, and does anybody out there know what one of these...
13 July 2017 9,022 7 View
A catastrophy is an anthropic interpretation of an event which categorises it as essentially destructive. Naturally occurring 'catastrophes' however are clearly responsible for, in fact are an...
02 July 2017 5,300 74 View
What is it about studying our ancient ancestors that causes so much friction among scientists? The science of paleoanthropology has seen some of the biggest scientific squabbles in the history of...
26 February 2017 2,996 98 View
The latest appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States Judge Neil Gorsuch has robustly criticised the use of courtrooms as a forum for social change. He states that this is bad for both...
01 February 2017 1,168 56 View
Thomas Weldon, Oxford philosopher and aide to Air Chief Marshall Sir Arthur 'Bomber' Harris belived that the only way to end war was for it to be as evil and nasty as possible. A war fought by...
29 November 2016 6,357 29 View
Mosquitos represent a major threat to global health and are likely to become more dangerous in the future. Do we need to prioritise the destruction of this pest and to perhaps introduce more...
27 April 2016 7,292 37 View
One of the most frequently used expressions in scientific research papers is "the mechanism is not fully understood" and this is a great motivator for researchers to strive to expand scientific...
18 April 2014 7,781 99 View
Is it better to keep cultured Paclitaxel and Adriamycin resistant cells in the drugs in order to maintain resistance in the individual cells.
15 January 2014 2,127 3 View
Would science be better communicated in the journals if the authors wrote in plain English rather than jargon? It seems to have worked to some extent in law and that once impenetrable language...
26 December 2013 3,650 14 View
While there is high quality science journalism available, there is also a great deal of misleading and in some cases dangerous copies. Is this a national or international trend?
14 December 2012 395 8 View
The origin of life on Earth is still not known. Some maintain that rather than it having originated here as a result of complex organic chemical reactions that it arrived fully formed from space...
01 January 1970 4,696 5 View
Andrew Neil, a TV presenter here in UK has just used a word, ultracrepidarianism, the roots of which are attributed to Pliny the Elder. ne supra crepidam sutor judicare ‘let the cobbler not judge...
01 January 1970 3,574 61 View
The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House) has opened a discussion on the contribution of technology to democracy. Does anyone have any ideas on how technology might be used to...
01 January 1970 6,112 2 View
The population of Africa is growing at a rapid pace with some estimates projecting 2.4 billion by 2050. Even the more conservative estimates indicate a massive growth by the end of the...
01 January 1970 8,124 2 View
The Covid-19 crisis has indicated how relatively easy it is for otherwise democratic institutions to impose autocratic methods to deal with a crisis. Just about every country affected by the...
01 January 1970 8,283 19 View
What will society look like when the pandemic is over? Opinions range from a return to normal to a totally changed world. Will we have to be forever on standby for the next outbreak which could...
01 January 1970 1,002 10 View
Since January this year we have been under the threat of a pandemic, since March our governments have intervened to control it and largely failed, whatever the initiatives they deployed. The virus...
01 January 1970 3,447 12 View
Somewhere around 4.5 billion years ago a Mars sized planet struck the Earth causing the formation of Lunar, our moon. It is likely that this event was crucial the evolution of multicellular life...
01 January 1970 8,673 5 View
Political commentators often refer to the wave of populism that has engulfed many of the world’s democracies as ‘Post Truth Politics’. The general definition of this suggests that political...
01 January 1970 8,034 4 View
