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OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus

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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#101 » by Jay240 » Wed Sep 16, 2020 3:14 am

SFour wrote:
Jay240 wrote:
Basketball_Jones wrote:I’d say we are probably the only intelligent beings in our galaxy. Outside of that though, could be anything out there


If we're the only intelligent beings, then the whole galaxy is f*****. The fact that we're spending billions in dollars, and who knows how much time, effort, and resources trying to find life on other planet instead of using it to take care of life on this planet shows how intelligent we are.

But to stay on topic, I'd probably guess that there is intelligent life out there and it found us first. The whole UFO's and little green men thing. Some say they are fabrications of government to cover-up military experiments. But what if they are fabrications of a higher form of intelligent being to make us believe that something is out there when in fact something else is out there.


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Those are man-made inventions, who's to say that they wouldn't have been invented regardless.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#102 » by brownbobcat » Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:31 am

Lateral Quicks wrote:Why is it impossible to live for a long duration in space? You don't need faster than light travel to live in space.

Human physiology has adapted over millions of years to function on this planet, which has itself developed over billions of years. The complexity and interdependence of Earth's biological, geological, chemical and and physical processes are unfathomable. It doesn't even matter how long the space trip is, surviving anywhere outside of Earth for multiple generations or millennia would require solving countless problems about countless things we've barely even scratched the surface of knowing. It would presume a level of knowledge and power so many orders of magnitude greater than what we have today that space colonization itself would be a farcical goal. You might as well posit that we'd have the ability to build solar systems at that point.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#103 » by 720 » Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:36 am

Jay240 wrote:
SFour wrote:
Jay240 wrote:
If we're the only intelligent beings, then the whole galaxy is f*****. The fact that we're spending billions in dollars, and who knows how much time, effort, and resources trying to find life on other planet instead of using it to take care of life on this planet shows how intelligent we are.

But to stay on topic, I'd probably guess that there is intelligent life out there and it found us first. The whole UFO's and little green men thing. Some say they are fabrications of government to cover-up military experiments. But what if they are fabrications of a higher form of intelligent being to make us believe that something is out there when in fact something else is out there.


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Those are man-made inventions, who's to say that they wouldn't have been invented regardless.

NASA got founding during the Cold War. That is what allowed for many breakthroughs to take place. War is the ultimate accelerant when it comes to innovation.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#104 » by shefcurry » Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:52 am

GREATPURPLESHARK wrote:True ! And the fact that many people were jailed or even killed for promoting the theory of heliocentrism over the course of more than a century kind of reminds of the fact of religion’s eternal opposition to scientific progress and highlights that other guy’s question about what harm does religion do.


Oh dear. I really don’t mean this in a personally offensive way but your understanding of science and history appears to be superficial and informed by pop culture rather than actual rigorous historical investigation. This is a common myth that is easily debunked by actually researching the topic. Galileo was jailed for being a **** disturber and making many political enemies, not because of some anti-science faction within the Church. His theories were questioned not because he was proposing something new (it wasn't) but because he was advocating the Copernican model as true when at the time the science was far from settled, and eventually the Kepler model proved to be more correct than the Copernican model. The Pope was actually an imprimateur on one of his previous writings. There is little to no evidence that religion suppressed science, and in fact most western science was practiced and performed by clergy.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#105 » by Lateral Quicks » Wed Sep 16, 2020 12:06 pm

brownbobcat wrote:
Lateral Quicks wrote:Why is it impossible to live for a long duration in space? You don't need faster than light travel to live in space.

Human physiology has adapted over millions of years to function on this planet, which has itself developed over billions of years. The complexity and interdependence of Earth's biological, geological, chemical and and physical processes are unfathomable. It doesn't even matter how long the space trip is, surviving anywhere outside of Earth for multiple generations or millennia would require solving countless problems about countless things we've barely even scratched the surface of knowing. It would presume a level of knowledge and power so many orders of magnitude greater than what we have today that space colonization itself would be a farcical goal. You might as well posit that we'd have the ability to build solar systems at that point.


I disagree. We have a very good idea of what it will take to keep a human being healthy over long periods of time in space - artificial gravity, Earth-normal pressure, no harmful radiation exposure, and an Earth-like air mixture. We know how to build spacecraft to do these things in theory already, and we're already doing some of them (Space Station). What it will take is advances in energy and construction. When you consider we were getting around on horses 120 years ago, I would argue it's not likely to be long before we advance.

Yes there will countless obstacles and problems to solve. Humans happen to be really good at that. Check out what it takes to build a jumbo jet - a remarkably intricate vehicle - as an example of what humans are capable of.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#106 » by Meursault » Wed Sep 16, 2020 12:58 pm

Lateral Quicks wrote:
brownbobcat wrote:
Lateral Quicks wrote:Why is it impossible to live for a long duration in space? You don't need faster than light travel to live in space.

Human physiology has adapted over millions of years to function on this planet, which has itself developed over billions of years. The complexity and interdependence of Earth's biological, geological, chemical and and physical processes are unfathomable. It doesn't even matter how long the space trip is, surviving anywhere outside of Earth for multiple generations or millennia would require solving countless problems about countless things we've barely even scratched the surface of knowing. It would presume a level of knowledge and power so many orders of magnitude greater than what we have today that space colonization itself would be a farcical goal. You might as well posit that we'd have the ability to build solar systems at that point.


I disagree. We have a very good idea of what it will take to keep a human being healthy over long periods of time in space - artificial gravity, Earth-normal pressure, no harmful radiation exposure, and an Earth-like air mixture. We know how to build spacecraft to do these things in theory already, and we're already doing some of them (Space Station). What it will take is advances in energy and construction. When you consider we were getting around on horses 120 years ago, I would argue it's not likely to be long before we advance.

Yes there will countless obstacles and problems to solve. Humans happen to be really good at that. Check out what it takes to build a jumbo jet - a remarkably intricate vehicle - as an example of what humans are capable of.


I think both of you make great points, and are both correct in different ways. I'd venture to say that the confounding variable might be human nature itself, with respect specifically to governance and socio-political elements. The fact that we're capable of extremely complex innovations and solutions (i.e. the Space Station, jumbo jets) and completely incapable of recognizing even the need to resolve others (i.e. climate change, social inequality) makes me think it's a coin toss at this point.

History is kind of an indication of this - for all of the artistic, literary, scientific, philosophical, and mathematical advances that the Greek/Egyptian/Roman civilization offered to Europe/Northern Africa for several millenia, things went to complete sh*t pretty quickly by 395 AD. You can find similar examples within Ancient China/India/Mesapotamia/Africa/etc and throughout the course of human civilization.

There's a part of me that thinks we're very rapidly approaching this crossroads once again, as in, within the next 6-18 months. Nothing outright catastrophic like WWIII, but something akin to a 7 hour chartered flight from London to NYC that happens to set itself 2 degrees off course, in which case this next year and a half is somehow representative of the first hour of this journey. Whether we recognize it in time to rectify our trajectory or will discover this when we land somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic remains to be seen.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#107 » by dohboy_24 » Wed Sep 16, 2020 3:12 pm

GREATPURPLESHARK wrote: The difference is that there are exactly zero lines of scientific evidence to Support the reality of any god claim, yet there are multiple lines of scientific evidence to support the reality of the big bang theory, such as red shifted light that we can directly observe, and a measurably expanding universe that can be regressed back to a single point at some time in the past, which we have measured to be about 14 billion years ago (13.8 to be more precise). So, yes, there are very good, and scientifically valid reasons to believe that the big bang theory is correct, and yet there are no scientifically valid reasons to believe in either the existence of any god at all, or of the claim that any one of these gods is responsible for the creation of the universe. These two beliefs are not equal in any way, and believing in one is justified while believing in the other is not.


Would the Catholic priest who proposed the Big Bang Theory agree?

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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#108 » by dohboy_24 » Wed Sep 16, 2020 3:31 pm

GREATPURPLESHARK wrote: The big bang theory is not a guess, it is a well-supported scientific theory that explains all available data.


At one point in time the Big Bang Theory was not the generally held belief of the day. While it is well supported, it's not the only possible way to explain the available data, which is why alternate theories exist in the first place.

GREATPURPLESHARK wrote:Many theories change over time as new data emerges, and if the theory can not account for the new data it must be changed or discarded. That is how science works. That is why, when the extraordinarily few scientific hoaxes have occurred it was actually other scientists who exposed them. But do not be confused, there is a huge difference between a hoax or junk science claim that can legitimately be “debunked” and the large number of legitimate theories that have been modified over time to account for new information (such as evolution, that knew absolutely nothing about genetics when it was proposed). Theories that are amended over time are still legitimate and reliable explanations of the mechanisms of nature.


Among all of the proposed theories, most scientists would likely concede the Big Bang Theory to be the one they believe to be the most accurate, but general agreement and consensus does not validate it anymore than the less popular theories which can just as well explain the available data.

Which other scientific theories meant to explain the formation of the universe, galaxies, and our solar system would you suggest are inferior to the Big Bang Theory?
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#109 » by GREATPURPLESHARK » Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:07 pm

dohboy_24 wrote:
GREATPURPLESHARK wrote: The difference is that there are exactly zero lines of scientific evidence to Support the reality of any god claim, yet there are multiple lines of scientific evidence to support the reality of the big bang theory, such as red shifted light that we can directly observe, and a measurably expanding universe that can be regressed back to a single point at some time in the past, which we have measured to be about 14 billion years ago (13.8 to be more precise). So, yes, there are very good, and scientifically valid reasons to believe that the big bang theory is correct, and yet there are no scientifically valid reasons to believe in either the existence of any god at all, or of the claim that any one of these gods is responsible for the creation of the universe. These two beliefs are not equal in any way, and believing in one is justified while believing in the other is not.


Would the Catholic priest who proposed the Big Bang Theory agree?

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Yes, he likely would agree that there was evidence to support his theory, especially if he could review the modern cosmological data that adds even more support to his theory. No, he likely would not agree that there is no evidence for a god, because ......
HE IS A PRIEST ! He would have no choice but to say there is evidence for god, and he would be right. I have seen tons of arguments claiming evidence for god. I have accepted none of it because the arguments are all incredibly weak, almost entirely logically fallacious, and none of them that MIGHT, at best, suggest deism could possibly be twisted into demonstrating that if any god existed that it could ever be shown that it was any one particular god, such as Allah, the christian god or Zeus. Also, and this is the important part, NO he could not say that there is any SCIENTIFIC evidence for a god, because none exists. If he said there was he would be a dishonest scientist and person. Religious people of all kinds have searched for thousands of years for any demonstrable, reproducible scientific evidence for the existence of their chosen god, and none of them have ever come up with a single thing. If you think that kind of evidence exists, by all means take it to the science community and go get your Nobel prize. Except you can’t, because many religious scientists before you have tried and failed to make a scientific, repeatable, verifiable, falsifiable argument.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#110 » by GREATPURPLESHARK » Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:50 pm

dohboy_24 wrote:
GREATPURPLESHARK wrote: The big bang theory is not a guess, it is a well-supported scientific theory that explains all available data.


At one point in time the Big Bang Theory was not the generally held belief of the day. While it is well supported, it's not the only possible way to explain the available data, which is why alternate theories exist in the first place.

GREATPURPLESHARK wrote:Many theories change over time as new data emerges, and if the theory can not account for the new data it must be changed or discarded. That is how science works. That is why, when the extraordinarily few scientific hoaxes have occurred it was actually other scientists who exposed them. But do not be confused, there is a huge difference between a hoax or junk science claim that can legitimately be “debunked” and the large number of legitimate theories that have been modified over time to account for new information (such as evolution, that knew absolutely nothing about genetics when it was proposed). Theories that are amended over time are still legitimate and reliable explanations of the mechanisms of nature.


Among all of the proposed theories, most scientists would likely concede the Big Bang Theory to be the one they believe to be the most accurate, but general agreement and consensus does not validate it anymore than the less popular theories which can just as well explain the available data.

Which other scientific theories meant to explain the formation of the universe, galaxies, and our solar system would you suggest are inferior to the Big Bang Theory?



Hello ! I’m glad you re contributing to this very interesting discussion, so forgive me because I am just a bit confused as to what you are asking me or the point(s) you are trying to make. It seems like in the first highlighted section you are actually supporting what I wrote, because my quote says nothing about alternative theories, simply that the Big bang is a well-supported scientific theory, which you clearly acknowledge. In the second highlighted section I respond to his claim of “many debunked” scientific theories by pointing out the difference between hoax theories or methodologically unsupportable claims and legitimate theories that simply needed to be adapted as new data was collected. That quote says nothing about alternative theories to the big bang.
What you say in your comment is correct, the big bang is currently the most widely accepted theory on the origin of the universe among a plurality of scientists, and you are also correct to point out that alternate theories do exist that also cover many, or all relevant data points. I do not mean to put words in your mouth, so please correct me if I am going off on the wrong track here, but it seems as if you are suggesting that because alternative theories that also explain all relevant information exist, that this somehow disproves or reduces the reliability of the big bang theory. If I am wrong and that is not what you re suggesting, I apologize, but here is my response to that question anyway.
In a way you are correct, and in a way you are not. The existence of alternate theories does not logically invalidate either theory, unless they are logically exclusive, where for one to be true the other must be false. There are many scientific alternative theory situations where both theories could be true, just as there are many that are logically exclusive to each other. The deciding factor in most of these situations is information gained over time. As new data sets become available they will often provide information that would demonstrate a failing or weakness of a particular theory, which may very well reduce the likelihood that it is correct, or that may simply invalidate the theory altogether. This is a very common occurrence in science. One of the other factors in those scientists leaning towards one particular explanation over another is the “weight of evidence”. This is the idea that some evidence is more convincing than other evidence. For example you may have two theories that are logically sound, have relatively equal amounts of evidentiary support, and that both have a logical foundation that cannot be disputed, and then later one of the theories gets another piece of evidence to support it in the form of a scientific experiment. This is now not just a logical argument that can not be contradicted by any current evidence, it is now a peer-reviewed, repeatable, falsifiable experiment that supports some aspect of the theory (such as the 1919 British Expeditionary Force experiment on a solar eclipse that gave experimental evidence of the validity of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity). This type of evidence is considered by many to be “more convincing” than other types of evidence. It is not always conclusive, but makes the theory a bit more convincing in the minds of some. Of course we must keep in mind that scientific consensus changes, often for reasons that other scientists would not agree on, and that scientific consensus has been shown to be wrong in the past (there was a famous scientific paper that “proved” that given their dimensions bumblebees should not be able to fly, and yet they do it all the time. Please note that I put the word “proved” in quotes because science never “proves” anything. The only branch of science that ever claims to “prove” anything is mathematics. Every other branch avoids that word as their theories are not considered “proof” of anything, they are only ever considered the best current explanation of a given event or phenomena).
If you are asking me for my opinion on which alternative big bang theories are the most convincing I will have to spend a bit of time reviewing them so as to be able to give you actual reasons for my thinking rather than just my half-formed thoughts off the top of my head. Please let me know if that is actually your question so I do not waste time with it if you are not actually interested in that.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#111 » by xAIRNESSx » Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:54 pm

Basketball_Jones wrote:I’d say we are probably the only intelligent beings in our galaxy. Outside of that though, could be anything out there


Why do you think we're the only intelligent life in our galaxy?
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#112 » by scopy » Wed Sep 16, 2020 4:56 pm

TRik wrote:
brownbobcat wrote:
PD28 wrote:Y'all scientists need to leave the religious people alone lol. They don't hurt anyone believing in whatever they've been taught...so long as they don't force it on others. RealGM mobile app

Very true, except for all those other times they did try to force it on others and/or have wars over things like bread recipes.


The irony as well. This thread was started because a certain gas was identified on Venus, that's it. Yet somehow, some people still managed to start fighting about religion. :banghead:


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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#113 » by GREATPURPLESHARK » Wed Sep 16, 2020 6:37 pm

shefcurry wrote:
GREATPURPLESHARK wrote:True ! And the fact that many people were jailed or even killed for promoting the theory of heliocentrism over the course of more than a century kind of reminds of the fact of religion’s eternal opposition to scientific progress and highlights that other guy’s question about what harm does religion do.


Oh dear. I really don’t mean this in a personally offensive way but your understanding of science and history appears to be superficial and informed by pop culture rather than actual rigorous historical investigation. This is a common myth that is easily debunked by actually researching the topic. Galileo was jailed for being a **** disturber and making many political enemies, not because of some anti-science faction within the Church. His theories were questioned not because he was proposing something new (it wasn't) but because he was advocating the Copernican model as true when at the time the science was far from settled, and eventually the Kepler model proved to be more correct than the Copernican model. The Pope was actually an imprimateur on one of his previous writings. There is little to no evidence that religion suppressed science, and in fact most western science was practiced and performed by clergy.



Hello shefcurry, although I certainly appreciate that you said you are not trying to give offence with your comments, there really is no other way to view them when you insult my scientific and historical knowledge. As i stated in one of my previous posts, no-one, not even scientists, can be expected to be experts in every aspect of science that a discussion like this entails, but if you can find some scientific statement I have made that is provably false I would be grateful to be corrected, since I believe I am an honest person with a great deal of scientific knowledge, so if I am wrong I need to know where exactly. Also, as someone with an additional degree in history I am dismayed that you are attempting to impune my research abilities and describe my historical knowledge as “superficial” when I have, and am about to pass on, solid sources for the information I have offered in this thread Of course history is even more rife with interpretational disagreements than science, but I will not attempt to address the more controversial aspects of our discussion, but instead stick to established historical fact to shore up my arguments.
First, you state that Galileo was NOT “jailed” for proposing the Heliocentric theory (house arrest is somewhat less than “jail”, but he may well have been held in some location and not allowed to leave while being interrogated by the Roman Inquisition, so I can live with the term “jailed” despite it not being 100% accurate). Here is some basic information and historical research about Galileo’s experiences at the time. Please note that I have removed a lengthy section from the historical research document where it details his release, writing of a second book with much the same information but rewroked so as not to appear to endorse the heliocentric model, his subsequent arrest for it, and I have moved on to the end result of that second trial, which resulted in his house arrest.
(From Wikipedia) “The Scientific Revolution began in 1543 with Nicholas Copernicus and his Heliocentric theory and is defined as the beginning of a dramatic shift in thought and belief towards scientific theory. The Scientific Revolution began in Europe where the Catholic Church had the strongest hold.
Throughout the 16th and 17th century, the Church continued to feel threatened by the emerging ideas by the scientists, most prominently Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. In response, the church deemed them heretics and attacked some of the most defiant ones including burning Bruno at the stake and denouncing Galileos statement and placing him under house arrest until his death in 1642.”

(From “February 2016: 400 Years Ago the Catholic Church Prohibited Copernicanism”)
In February-March 1615, one Dominican friar filed a written complaint against him, and another one testified in person in front of the Roman Inquisition. They accused Galileo of heresy, for believing in the earth’s motion, which contradicted Scripture, e.g., the miracle in Joshua 10:12-13.
The Inquisition launched an investigation. Galileo’s writings were evaluated and other witnesses interrogated. The charges against Galileo were unsubstantiated. However, the officials started worrying about the status of heliocentrism and consulted a committee of experts.
On February 24, 1616, the consultants unanimously reported the assessment that heliocentrism was philosophically (i.e., scientifically) false and theologically heretical or at least erroneous.
The following day, the Inquisition, presided by Pope Paul V, considered the case. Although it did not endorse the heresy recommendation, it accepted the judgments of scientific falsity and theological error, and decided to prohibit the theory.
Thus, on February 26, the Inquisition’s most authoritative cardinal, Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), met with Galileo in private and gave him the following warning: the Church was going to declare the idea of the earth’s motion false and contrary to Scripture, and so this theory could not be held or defended. Galileo agreed to comply. (Here is where I skip ahead to the results of the second trial) The Inquisition summoned him to Rome, and the trial proceedings lasted from April to June 1633. He was found guilty of suspected heresy, for defending the earth’s motion, and thus denying the authority of Scripture.
“Suspected heresy” was not as serious a religious crime as “formal heresy,” and so his punishment was not death by being burned at the stake, but rather house arrest (for life).
The original controversy ended then, but a new one began, about the facts, causes, responsibilities, and lessons of the original one. The Church’s condemnation of Copernicanism and Galileo became the iconic illustration of the problematic relationship between science and religion.

Shefcurry, you also go on to say that there was little to no evidence to suggest that religion suppressed science, and that most science was actually done by clergy.
You are correct about much science being done by clergy. There are several important reasons for this. First, at that time (over many centuries) pretty much everyone in Europe was Christian, especially since the enormous pressure, on pain of inprisonment and even death, by the church to proclaim your faith led many to be or pretend to be religious. Secondly, scientifically curious people often found their way to the clergy because, as far as scientific research was concerned, that is where the money was ! Third, for many centuries the church was a generous donor to scientific research due in large part to their earnest beliefs. They felt that what they believed was true and that scientific research would only serve to reveal the truth of their god. It was only after many years and too many instances to count of science debunking religious claims by the thousands, particularly ones that threatened their core beliefs direct from scripture (as opposed to claims made with reasons not mentioned in the bible) that the church began to suppress nw findings, and then actively oppose scientific research that disagreed with any scriptural positions. The church was absolutely brutal in their fear and suppression tactics over many, many years.
Here are some other examples of the church opposing scientific findings, these are only a very few of a great many I could reference so if these are not enough let me know and I will take up three more pages in this thread with them:

Darwin and others have received much criticism and pressure from the church, and they seem to want to discredit evolution due to the unreasonable and unsupported belief that if they do it will somehow go back to “proving” that god did it (this is especially true for creationists that believe the genesis story of adam and eve is literally true and that it “disproves” evolution, despite evolution by natural selection being one of the most, if not the most, thoroughly proven theories in the history of science.)

- Zoology: Conrad Gessner's great zoological work, Historiae animalium, appeared in 4 vols. (quadrupeds, birds, fishes folio), 1551–1558, at Zürich, with a fifth (snakes) being issued in 1587. This work is recognized as the starting-point of modern zoology. There was extreme religious tension at the time Historiae animalium came out. Gesner was Protestant. Under Pope Paul IV it was felt that the religious convictions of an author contaminated all his writings,[91] so – without any regard for the content of the work – it was added to the Roman Catholic Church's list of prohibited books.


The church actively refused to install lightning rods in bell towers, or to remove bell ringers from church towers during storms because they believed that god, who controlled lightning, would never strike one of his own churches, despite the enormous evidence to the contrary. Eventually, enough bell ringers were struck by lightning and injured or killed that prohibitions were put in force against allowing them to ring the bells during storms, and lightning rods were installed in most church towers.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#114 » by shefcurry » Wed Sep 16, 2020 7:54 pm

GREATPURPLESHARK wrote:
shefcurry wrote:
GREATPURPLESHARK wrote:True ! And the fact that many people were jailed or even killed for promoting the theory of heliocentrism over the course of more than a century kind of reminds of the fact of religion’s eternal opposition to scientific progress and highlights that other guy’s question about what harm does religion do.


Oh dear. I really don’t mean this in a personally offensive way but your understanding of science and history appears to be superficial and informed by pop culture rather than actual rigorous historical investigation. This is a common myth that is easily debunked by actually researching the topic. Galileo was jailed for being a **** disturber and making many political enemies, not because of some anti-science faction within the Church. His theories were questioned not because he was proposing something new (it wasn't) but because he was advocating the Copernican model as true when at the time the science was far from settled, and eventually the Kepler model proved to be more correct than the Copernican model. The Pope was actually an imprimateur on one of his previous writings. There is little to no evidence that religion suppressed science, and in fact most western science was practiced and performed by clergy.



Hello shefcurry, although I certainly appreciate that you said you are not trying to give offence with your comments, there really is no other way to view them when you insult my scientific and historical knowledge. As i stated in one of my previous posts, no-one, not even scientists, can be expected to be experts in every aspect of science that a discussion like this entails, but if you can find some scientific statement I have made that is provably false I would be grateful to be corrected, since I believe I am an honest person with a great deal of scientific knowledge, so if I am wrong I need to know where exactly. Also, as someone with an additional degree in history I am dismayed that you are attempting to impune my research abilities and describe my historical knowledge as “superficial” when I have, and am about to pass on, solid sources for the information I have offered in this thread Of course history is even more rife with interpretational disagreements than science, but I will not attempt to address the more controversial aspects of our discussion, but instead stick to established historical fact to shore up my arguments.
First, you state that Galileo was NOT “jailed” for proposing the Heliocentric theory (house arrest is somewhat less than “jail”, but he may well have been held in some location and not allowed to leave while being interrogated by the Roman Inquisition, so I can live with the term “jailed” despite it not being 100% accurate). Here is some basic information and historical research about Galileo’s experiences at the time. Please note that I have removed a lengthy section from the historical research document where it details his release, writing of a second book with much the same information but rewroked so as not to appear to endorse the heliocentric model, his subsequent arrest for it, and I have moved on to the end result of that second trial, which resulted in his house arrest.
(From Wikipedia) “The Scientific Revolution began in 1543 with Nicholas Copernicus and his Heliocentric theory and is defined as the beginning of a dramatic shift in thought and belief towards scientific theory. The Scientific Revolution began in Europe where the Catholic Church had the strongest hold.
Throughout the 16th and 17th century, the Church continued to feel threatened by the emerging ideas by the scientists, most prominently Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. In response, the church deemed them heretics and attacked some of the most defiant ones including burning Bruno at the stake and denouncing Galileos statement and placing him under house arrest until his death in 1642.”

(From “February 2016: 400 Years Ago the Catholic Church Prohibited Copernicanism”)
In February-March 1615, one Dominican friar filed a written complaint against him, and another one testified in person in front of the Roman Inquisition. They accused Galileo of heresy, for believing in the earth’s motion, which contradicted Scripture, e.g., the miracle in Joshua 10:12-13.
The Inquisition launched an investigation. Galileo’s writings were evaluated and other witnesses interrogated. The charges against Galileo were unsubstantiated. However, the officials started worrying about the status of heliocentrism and consulted a committee of experts.
On February 24, 1616, the consultants unanimously reported the assessment that heliocentrism was philosophically (i.e., scientifically) false and theologically heretical or at least erroneous.
The following day, the Inquisition, presided by Pope Paul V, considered the case. Although it did not endorse the heresy recommendation, it accepted the judgments of scientific falsity and theological error, and decided to prohibit the theory.
Thus, on February 26, the Inquisition’s most authoritative cardinal, Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), met with Galileo in private and gave him the following warning: the Church was going to declare the idea of the earth’s motion false and contrary to Scripture, and so this theory could not be held or defended. Galileo agreed to comply. (Here is where I skip ahead to the results of the second trial) The Inquisition summoned him to Rome, and the trial proceedings lasted from April to June 1633. He was found guilty of suspected heresy, for defending the earth’s motion, and thus denying the authority of Scripture.
“Suspected heresy” was not as serious a religious crime as “formal heresy,” and so his punishment was not death by being burned at the stake, but rather house arrest (for life).
The original controversy ended then, but a new one began, about the facts, causes, responsibilities, and lessons of the original one. The Church’s condemnation of Copernicanism and Galileo became the iconic illustration of the problematic relationship between science and religion.

Shefcurry, you also go on to say that there was little to no evidence to suggest that religion suppressed science, and that most science was actually done by clergy.
You are correct about much science being done by clergy. There are several important reasons for this. First, at that time (over many centuries) pretty much everyone in Europe was Christian, especially since the enormous pressure, on pain of inprisonment and even death, by the church to proclaim your faith led many to be or pretend to be religious. Secondly, scientifically curious people often found their way to the clergy because, as far as scientific research was concerned, that is where the money was ! Third, for many centuries the church was a generous donor to scientific research due in large part to their earnest beliefs. They felt that what they believed was true and that scientific research would only serve to reveal the truth of their god. It was only after many years and too many instances to count of science debunking religious claims by the thousands, particularly ones that threatened their core beliefs direct from scripture (as opposed to claims made with reasons not mentioned in the bible) that the church began to suppress nw findings, and then actively oppose scientific research that disagreed with any scriptural positions. The church was absolutely brutal in their fear and suppression tactics over many, many years.
Here are some other examples of the church opposing scientific findings, these are only a very few of a great many I could reference so if these are not enough let me know and I will take up three more pages in this thread with them:

Darwin and others have received much criticism and pressure from the church, and they seem to want to discredit evolution due to the unreasonable and unsupported belief that if they do it will somehow go back to “proving” that god did it (this is especially true for creationists that believe the genesis story of adam and eve is literally true and that it “disproves” evolution, despite evolution by natural selection being one of the most, if not the most, thoroughly proven theories in the history of science.)

- Zoology: Conrad Gessner's great zoological work, Historiae animalium, appeared in 4 vols. (quadrupeds, birds, fishes folio), 1551–1558, at Zürich, with a fifth (snakes) being issued in 1587. This work is recognized as the starting-point of modern zoology. There was extreme religious tension at the time Historiae animalium came out. Gesner was Protestant. Under Pope Paul IV it was felt that the religious convictions of an author contaminated all his writings,[91] so – without any regard for the content of the work – it was added to the Roman Catholic Church's list of prohibited books.


The church actively refused to install lightning rods in bell towers, or to remove bell ringers from church towers during storms because they believed that god, who controlled lightning, would never strike one of his own churches, despite the enormous evidence to the contrary. Eventually, enough bell ringers were struck by lightning and injured or killed that prohibitions were put in force against allowing them to ring the bells during storms, and lightning rods were installed in most church towers.


Thanks for the respectful response. As with most things, the devil is in the details, and Wikipedia, being a user-contributed site, is prone to errors, opinion, and confirmation bias. Suggest checking the actual historical records on Galileo vs. the Church and you'll get a very different story.

Perhaps I am making an incorrect assumption, but your tenor suggests that you are relatively young. I assume this because you sound a lot like I did when I was younger, where confirmation bias leads us to subconsciously subsume narratives in support of our worldview while failing to put the same level of diligence into understanding the full nuance of history. History is political, and there are always multiple versions of the truth out there, depending on the perspective of the person holding the pen.

It is very true that there are and were factions within the church that were anti-science, just like there are people today who believe in QAnon. They don't represent the majority opinion, yet they are loud and prominent in the media, and a future historian looking back on old tapes of CNN under layers of sediment might presume that it is what everyone believed if they looked only at that tape. You have to look at all the extraneous evidence to get a clearer picture of the story.

I am inherently a skeptic of everything, and always like to read multiple sides of the story. The reality is, despite some speedbumps along the way (the Inquisition being notable a dark time), the church has historically been quite supportive of science. In fact, the church's preservation of Aristotlean natural philosophy over the centuries is largely the bedrock from which the scientific method emerged.

Of course, it is not as compelling a story to say "yeah, maybe people in the past weren't so stupid after all" as it is to imagine a bunch of primitive people with torches burning books in the name of God, but the larger historical narrative supports the former, not the latter. The latter absolutely did happen, but it was the exception and not the rule.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#115 » by kleatius_01 » Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:17 pm

I often hear that belief in God and the nature of faith is foolish because it can't be proven or disproven by the scientific method. However for most lay people the scientific theories around the beginning of the universe and beginning of life are too complex and abstract to understand. They have no current method of observation or replication. To believe in them would require even more faith on my part than my belief in God does. The evidence of life on other planets would seriously shake my personal view of the world, and lend a lot of credibility to these theories.
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#116 » by brownbobcat » Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:18 pm

Lateral Quicks wrote:I disagree. We have a very good idea of what it will take to keep a human being healthy over long periods of time in space - artificial gravity, Earth-normal pressure, no harmful radiation exposure, and an Earth-like air mixture. We know how to build spacecraft to do these things in theory already, and we're already doing some of them (Space Station). What it will take is advances in energy and construction. When you consider we were getting around on horses 120 years ago, I would argue it's not likely to be long before we advance.

Yes there will countless obstacles and problems to solve. Humans happen to be really good at that. Check out what it takes to build a jumbo jet - a remarkably intricate vehicle - as an example of what humans are capable of.

We're not talking about keeping one person alive, we're talking successive generations over millennia. Human life does not exist in a vacuum, but rather within an extremely complicated ecosystem. Consider the problem of microbial life as one basic issue (out of billions).
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#117 » by kleatius_01 » Wed Sep 16, 2020 8:55 pm

GREATPURPLESHARK wrote: It was only after many years and too many instances to count of science debunking religious claims by the thousands, particularly ones that threatened their core beliefs direct from scripture (as opposed to claims made with reasons not mentioned in the bible) that the church began to suppress nw findings, and then actively oppose scientific research that disagreed with any scriptural positions.


What are these scriptural beliefs that have been debunked?
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#118 » by GREATPURPLESHARK » Wed Sep 16, 2020 9:31 pm

shefcurry wrote:
GREATPURPLESHARK wrote:
shefcurry wrote:
Oh dear. I really don’t mean this in a personally offensive way but your understanding of science and history appears to be superficial and informed by pop culture rather than actual rigorous historical investigation. This is a common myth that is easily debunked by actually researching the topic. Galileo was jailed for being a **** disturber and making many political enemies, not because of some anti-science faction within the Church. His theories were questioned not because he was proposing something new (it wasn't) but because he was advocating the Copernican model as true when at the time the science was far from settled, and eventually the Kepler model proved to be more correct than the Copernican model. The Pope was actually an imprimateur on one of his previous writings. There is little to no evidence that religion suppressed science, and in fact most western science was practiced and performed by clergy.



Hello shefcurry, although I certainly appreciate that you said you are not trying to give offence with your comments, there really is no other way to view them when you insult my scientific and historical knowledge. As i stated in one of my previous posts, no-one, not even scientists, can be expected to be experts in every aspect of science that a discussion like this entails, but if you can find some scientific statement I have made that is provably false I would be grateful to be corrected, since I believe I am an honest person with a great deal of scientific knowledge, so if I am wrong I need to know where exactly. Also, as someone with an additional degree in history I am dismayed that you are attempting to impune my research abilities and describe my historical knowledge as “superficial” when I have, and am about to pass on, solid sources for the information I have offered in this thread Of course history is even more rife with interpretational disagreements than science, but I will not attempt to address the more controversial aspects of our discussion, but instead stick to established historical fact to shore up my arguments.
First, you state that Galileo was NOT “jailed” for proposing the Heliocentric theory (house arrest is somewhat less than “jail”, but he may well have been held in some location and not allowed to leave while being interrogated by the Roman Inquisition, so I can live with the term “jailed” despite it not being 100% accurate). Here is some basic information and historical research about Galileo’s experiences at the time. Please note that I have removed a lengthy section from the historical research document where it details his release, writing of a second book with much the same information but rewroked so as not to appear to endorse the heliocentric model, his subsequent arrest for it, and I have moved on to the end result of that second trial, which resulted in his house arrest.
(From Wikipedia) “The Scientific Revolution began in 1543 with Nicholas Copernicus and his Heliocentric theory and is defined as the beginning of a dramatic shift in thought and belief towards scientific theory. The Scientific Revolution began in Europe where the Catholic Church had the strongest hold.
Throughout the 16th and 17th century, the Church continued to feel threatened by the emerging ideas by the scientists, most prominently Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton. In response, the church deemed them heretics and attacked some of the most defiant ones including burning Bruno at the stake and denouncing Galileos statement and placing him under house arrest until his death in 1642.”

(From “February 2016: 400 Years Ago the Catholic Church Prohibited Copernicanism”)
In February-March 1615, one Dominican friar filed a written complaint against him, and another one testified in person in front of the Roman Inquisition. They accused Galileo of heresy, for believing in the earth’s motion, which contradicted Scripture, e.g., the miracle in Joshua 10:12-13.
The Inquisition launched an investigation. Galileo’s writings were evaluated and other witnesses interrogated. The charges against Galileo were unsubstantiated. However, the officials started worrying about the status of heliocentrism and consulted a committee of experts.
On February 24, 1616, the consultants unanimously reported the assessment that heliocentrism was philosophically (i.e., scientifically) false and theologically heretical or at least erroneous.
The following day, the Inquisition, presided by Pope Paul V, considered the case. Although it did not endorse the heresy recommendation, it accepted the judgments of scientific falsity and theological error, and decided to prohibit the theory.
Thus, on February 26, the Inquisition’s most authoritative cardinal, Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621), met with Galileo in private and gave him the following warning: the Church was going to declare the idea of the earth’s motion false and contrary to Scripture, and so this theory could not be held or defended. Galileo agreed to comply. (Here is where I skip ahead to the results of the second trial) The Inquisition summoned him to Rome, and the trial proceedings lasted from April to June 1633. He was found guilty of suspected heresy, for defending the earth’s motion, and thus denying the authority of Scripture.
“Suspected heresy” was not as serious a religious crime as “formal heresy,” and so his punishment was not death by being burned at the stake, but rather house arrest (for life).
The original controversy ended then, but a new one began, about the facts, causes, responsibilities, and lessons of the original one. The Church’s condemnation of Copernicanism and Galileo became the iconic illustration of the problematic relationship between science and religion.

Shefcurry, you also go on to say that there was little to no evidence to suggest that religion suppressed science, and that most science was actually done by clergy.
You are correct about much science being done by clergy. There are several important reasons for this. First, at that time (over many centuries) pretty much everyone in Europe was Christian, especially since the enormous pressure, on pain of inprisonment and even death, by the church to proclaim your faith led many to be or pretend to be religious. Secondly, scientifically curious people often found their way to the clergy because, as far as scientific research was concerned, that is where the money was ! Third, for many centuries the church was a generous donor to scientific research due in large part to their earnest beliefs. They felt that what they believed was true and that scientific research would only serve to reveal the truth of their god. It was only after many years and too many instances to count of science debunking religious claims by the thousands, particularly ones that threatened their core beliefs direct from scripture (as opposed to claims made with reasons not mentioned in the bible) that the church began to suppress nw findings, and then actively oppose scientific research that disagreed with any scriptural positions. The church was absolutely brutal in their fear and suppression tactics over many, many years.
Here are some other examples of the church opposing scientific findings, these are only a very few of a great many I could reference so if these are not enough let me know and I will take up three more pages in this thread with them:

Darwin and others have received much criticism and pressure from the church, and they seem to want to discredit evolution due to the unreasonable and unsupported belief that if they do it will somehow go back to “proving” that god did it (this is especially true for creationists that believe the genesis story of adam and eve is literally true and that it “disproves” evolution, despite evolution by natural selection being one of the most, if not the most, thoroughly proven theories in the history of science.)

- Zoology: Conrad Gessner's great zoological work, Historiae animalium, appeared in 4 vols. (quadrupeds, birds, fishes folio), 1551–1558, at Zürich, with a fifth (snakes) being issued in 1587. This work is recognized as the starting-point of modern zoology. There was extreme religious tension at the time Historiae animalium came out. Gesner was Protestant. Under Pope Paul IV it was felt that the religious convictions of an author contaminated all his writings,[91] so – without any regard for the content of the work – it was added to the Roman Catholic Church's list of prohibited books.


The church actively refused to install lightning rods in bell towers, or to remove bell ringers from church towers during storms because they believed that god, who controlled lightning, would never strike one of his own churches, despite the enormous evidence to the contrary. Eventually, enough bell ringers were struck by lightning and injured or killed that prohibitions were put in force against allowing them to ring the bells during storms, and lightning rods were installed in most church towers.


Thanks for the respectful response. As with most things, the devil is in the details, and Wikipedia, being a user-contributed site, is prone to errors, opinion, and confirmation bias. Suggest checking the actual historical records on Galileo vs. the Church and you'll get a very different story.

Perhaps I am making an incorrect assumption, but your tenor suggests that you are relatively young. I assume this because you sound a lot like I did when I was younger, where confirmation bias leads us to subconsciously subsume narratives in support of our worldview while failing to put the same level of diligence into understanding the full nuance of history. History is political, and there are always multiple versions of the truth out there, depending on the perspective of the person holding the pen.

It is very true that there are and were factions within the church that were anti-science, just like there are people today who believe in QAnon. They don't represent the majority opinion, yet they are loud and prominent in the media, and a future historian looking back on old tapes of CNN under layers of sediment might presume that it is what everyone believed if they looked only at that tape. You have to look at all the extraneous evidence to get a clearer picture of the story.

I am inherently a skeptic of everything, and always like to read multiple sides of the story. The reality is, despite some speedbumps along the way (the Inquisition being notable a dark time), the church has historically been quite supportive of science. In fact, the church's preservation of Aristotlean natural philosophy over the centuries is largely the bedrock from which the scientific method emerged.

Of course, it is not as compelling a story to say "yeah, maybe people in the past weren't so stupid after all" as it is to imagine a bunch of primitive people with torches burning books in the name of God, but the larger historical narrative supports the former, not the latter. The latter absolutely did happen, but it was the exception and not the rule.


Ok, I am getting frustrated with what seem like pretensions of civility followed by clear insults. I am, in fact 56 years old and I write in a very precise and clear manner, as my formal training has prepared me to do. I go out of my way to be clear and precise about my definitions of terms and attempt to clarify the terms of others when they are unclear or committing an equivocation fallacy. I go out of my way to be clear about my intentions, such as noting that I removed a lengthy section of the historical essay I cited, and was specific about what that excluded content said. I do not write Like a young person, nor do I succumb to confirmation bias. Someone who did that would be prone to denying evidence that did not suit their narrative. What did I do ? I made all appropriate logical concessions to possible future objections to my points and I happily invited you to correct any scientific errors you think I may have committed so that I could be corrected rather than remaining incorrect. I really have no idea how you came to that ridiculous conclusion based on what I have written. I notice that you have not been able to find any science to correct me on and are content instead to attack my historical information, which I already noted, twice, was far more open to interpretational contention than even some scientific writings. And yet you say that Wikipedia is not a good source (which sometimes it is and sometimes it is not) without pointing out a single fact that is incorrect. I specifically chose those segments due to their essential lack of historical “commentary” and their foci on the dates and events that can be historically verified, as I said I would in my previous message. You also failed to acknowledge that I referenced Wikipedia only briefly to establish some historical context for those following the conversation that were not familiar with the basic framework of the events. The vast majority of my reply came from a research piece entitled, “February 2016: 400 Years Ago the Catholic Church Prohibited Copernicanism”, written by historian and professor emeritus Maurice Finoccio, as a shorter article regarding a book he wrote on this exact subject. Please do not condescend to tell me my sources are invalid when you didn’t even bother to notice the citation to his article that I clearly made before quoting anything from the article.
I am forced to agree with you that there are any number of biases that can, and often do, creep into virtually every piece of historical research (confirmation bias, recency bias, racial or cultural bias, etc.) and we must be on guard against believing any of it without at least acknowledging the possibility of these types of biases, but it is unfair for you to pretend that my sources are just all bad while you cite none of your own to refute mine, or even to point out a false fact among mine. You do say to “check out the actual historical records”, which is why I cited a work by professor who has, in fact, checked out the historical records on this issue and put his findings into his book.
I am starting to sense that you have a very strong inherent bias, perhaps because you are a religious apologist of some degree, otherwise you would not be attempting to deny the evidence I have laid out for you by asserting that, “sure it happened, but it was the exception not the rule”. And you can really say that with a straight face when the Inquisition alone lasted around 700 years and killed somewhere between 30,000 to 300,000 people just for the “crime” of not believing in someone else’s religion, and for having the guts to do real science and to promote genuine scientific discoveries in the face of this systemic and ongoing oppression and torture when all their religious torturers wanted them to say was, “God did it”. Sorry, but they were too principled and intellectually honest to bow to that pressure, despite knowing what their fate may be (Galileo knew Bruno had literally been burned alive for saying the same thing, so he was very brave to publicly make the same assertions). Also, you seem to scoff at the idea of religious book burnign being the norm and not the exception when there is far too massive a list of religious book burnings dating from thousands of hears ago right up 2019 when a Polish priest burned Harry Potter books because they represented witchcraft and the bible says you, “shall not suffer a witch to live” (witches ? Yes, the bible is clearly a great source of scientific knowledge, as I’m sure all the epileptics who were killed for being witches would agree.
If you are going to continue to be insulting and condescending without backing up any of your claims to errors I have made then I am not interested in having a dishonest discussion with you.

P.S. - if anyone can tell me how to cut down on the size of the previous quotes I would be grateful, these things are getting looooong !
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#119 » by tdotrep2 » Wed Sep 16, 2020 9:53 pm

I love hearing spend money on other stuff other than space... lmao thw amount of technological advancements spqce travel has provided has drasrically improved quality of life on this planet. Do some research
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Re: OT Breaking: Life Found on Venus 

Post#120 » by Lateral Quicks » Wed Sep 16, 2020 10:52 pm

brownbobcat wrote:
Lateral Quicks wrote:I disagree. We have a very good idea of what it will take to keep a human being healthy over long periods of time in space - artificial gravity, Earth-normal pressure, no harmful radiation exposure, and an Earth-like air mixture. We know how to build spacecraft to do these things in theory already, and we're already doing some of them (Space Station). What it will take is advances in energy and construction. When you consider we were getting around on horses 120 years ago, I would argue it's not likely to be long before we advance.

Yes there will countless obstacles and problems to solve. Humans happen to be really good at that. Check out what it takes to build a jumbo jet - a remarkably intricate vehicle - as an example of what humans are capable of.

We're not talking about keeping one person alive, we're talking successive generations over millennia. Human life does not exist in a vacuum, but rather within an extremely complicated ecosystem. Consider the problem of microbial life as one basic issue (out of billions).


I don't deny there will challenges - lots of them. I just think they will be solved. Even if it takes humanity a million years - that's barely a blink of an eye in cosmic terms.

Personally I think we're in the very early stages of colonizing the solar system. SpaceX/Musk are rapidly bringing down the cost of reaching space. So a fixed research or exploration budget goes further now because space launch is such a huge part of any space program. Eventually the costs will allow space tourism and the creation of hotels and private facilities in space. Our knowledge of and capabilities of living in space are going to rapidly accelerate from there - unless civilization collapses in the meantime, of course.
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