got any good trivia questions? | ADHD Information

Omally-Interesting presupositions . . .but I think your making a huge assumption about 'other intelligent life in the universe'.  I'm a big Sci-Fi fan, even though I don't read as much of it as I used to in my younger days.

Even if evolution could be true, the simplest life form is extremly complex, and would be still going through it's 'endless stages' of evolution. Even among scientist the definition of evolution is up for grabs. Macro evolution, the 'change over time due to external forces'  has new theorys every five years, when one version is considered unworkable. Micro evolution on the other hand is just changes already pre-existing internaly in the DNA of a life form.

The Science of evolution,has been incorperated into politics, education, business, medicne, law and just about every aspect of society.

Many scientists have rejected evolution , and see it as 'being bankrupt and lacking evedence' after many years of personal research and over 100 years of science as a whole searching for any believable conclusions.

Most people don't want to discuss subjects like this because they are not really sure how to get their point across or how to present it, or they resort to name calling when they feel threatend and can't defend their point of view.

John

[QUOTE=pilgrim]Most people don't want to discuss subjects like this because they are not really sure how to get their point across or how to present it, or they resort to name calling when they feel threatend and can't defend their point of view.[/QUOTE]

That's really it, isn't it? People are too attached to their own ideas. I find that having ADHD allows me to not be so attached. I'm such a laid back person that I love having conversations like this but I retreat quickly when people start pushing or feeling pushed. I think arguements are pointless and I don't understand why people think they have to push their ideas so much. What you said is interesting and worth considering. I don't have any clue, just speculation and I like it that way. Knowing it all would suck because it would mean having to pass it on to all the idiots of the world. Sometimes, it is bliss to just wonder but have no clue.

yeah but that's a big 'if'.... i believe in God, in the most radical way, but i don't necessarily think that everything in the bible is accurate or that it was ever meant to be a used as a scientific textbook but rather a metaphorical explanation for much of the human condition and a history of the Jewish people all that kinda stuff ---

so i don't think that this ape like form is anything like God.  at all.  no way.  i actually find a lot of humans vaguely aesthetically repulsive and hair for example --- i wish we were all hairless (on the head ok) but on legs and stuff it just looks ugly...we should either be fully haired - like a horse or a tiger - or not haired at all.  i don't like this half-way house, and we age, that is not in God's image. 

and we sag and get wrinkles and scars and lumps and bumps and are generally out of all the animals out there --- i think the general population, us a speicies, tend to rate more with the wart-hog on terms of elegance and attractiveness... rather than a gazelle or tiger or giraffe.  that's not to say that their aren't some stunning wart-hogs out there within the wart-hog world they are the epitome of wart-hogness but in comparison - wart-hogs with the rest of the species - just don't make it.

and we wear messy clothes, i swear i am fascist by nature.  i want everyone to have to wear the same outfit because this mess of colours and horrible bulges when someone is wearing a pair of jeans too tight and an ugly top on top.

it's not that people can't be elegant.  but most don't bother.  and so it is all messy and yup ----  go to somewhere like saudi arabia where everyone is in those long white nightshirt looking things with checked headcloth, how much easier on the eye!!!!

yup i am all for the 'soul' being in God's image but this body hmmm you know it just doesn't seem beautiful enough somehow.  even the most beautiful man or woman has hairy legs!  (if they don't shave them).


so you gonna give us the answers omalley or what????  and don't worry about me --- i'm not attached to anything i say....

i LOVE hearing other people's points of view.  especially if they are weird and different to my own. 
Who was the only president to ever defy a supreme court order? (I mentioned this in another post so it may not be so new.) The Cherokee Tribe took Andrew Jackson to court and they won. They were told they had the right to stay on their land in Georgia. Instead, President Jackson defied the order and marched them to Oklahoma... thus, the Trail of Tears where so many of them died. Thurogood Marshall was Chief Justice at the time (and was a distant cousin of Thomas Jefferson... got into with him over the whole Aaron Burr thing...) What do the Vietnamese call the Vietnam war? That American War. What president integrated the army? Truman. Who was the worst president ever? (rather subjective, eh?) My subjective answer... (ignoring the current president)... I would have to say either Buchanan or Pierce for failing to stop the Civil War and for even setting the stage for it by being idiots. Buchanan didn't have the popular vote (sound familiar?) and although he thought slavery was immoral, he felt it was constitutionally protected. He was a weak man and believed that the federal government should only step in to protect federal property. He even supported slavery in Kansas (remember... he found it immoral). He was slow in response to the South's overtures to war. Hmmm... sounds like others we know but in different circumstances. He led the country into that awful war. Did you know that the founding fathers wanted to make George Washington king of America and when he turned them down, they elected him president? What was the shortest war on record? The shortest war on record, between Britain and Zanzibar in 1896, lasted just 38 minutes. What year did Christmas become a national holiday? 1890. How many black americans received the medal of honor in the civil war? During the US Civil war, 200,000 blacks served in the Union Army; 38,000 gave their lives; 22 won the Medal of Honor. Which city in the US was the first to fluoridate its water? Grand Rapids, Mi in 1945.

 

yeah yeah i know the first one --- you said somewhere else.

andrew jackson right?  never heard of him but i'll take your word for it!

worst president - no idea.  jeez if you applied that to the kings/queens/prime ministers of the UK you'd be spoilt for choice.  from blathering, hairlipped, german idiots who could barely speak a word of English....  to the clinically insane fruit loops.

we should have stuck with the Stuarts that's what i think.  they are the true royalty not this Hanoverian lot.  still the thing i like about the monarchy is that you get people who don't necessarily want to be in charge --- so for once, you get a non-megalomaniacal type.  i think that's kinda healthy.

all those others - have been struggling through their whole career with the constant goal of POWER and SUCCESS and it warps their mentality a bit.  it's nice to have a few simple-minded types involved too.  keeps the balance, i reckon.

that's why i was a huge supporter of the house of Lords.... (which is currently being turned into some semi-elected house along the US lines, because our evil prime-minister believes he is a president and dislikes being thwarted by those that have differing ideas on issues ---

in fact, he is doing all he can to turn the UK into a mini-US such as trying to disband the National Health Service and enforcing these Foundation Hospitals on us and making further education no longer free - people now have to pay for their university studies as in the US.   encouraging debt and credit card spending.  inflating a housing boom.  trying to bring in 'identity cards' as compulsory. 

encouraging an attitude where a 'technical skill or leaving school at sixteen will definitely be harmful to your career.  trying to cut the dole and housing benefit and selling off council houses - which are free houses for anyone who signs on to the dole.  and it is not as though we can't see what he is doing.  he and his cronies have looked at how good their super-rich counterparts have got it here in the US and they want that for themselves.  he keeps on trying to create a culture where both spouses HAVE to work, it is not a question of choice but economic necessity, he keeps on making more 'child-care' provision, ostensibly a good thing, but only because he wants everyone to be enslaved to the corporation.  no longer free to think but all their energy only tied up in just managing to survive --- he's wrecking the pension system too.

it's so obvious.  he wants us all to be in debt through having no access to health-care or education or a safe home and money coming in if you lose your job or a pension for yourself when you are old ---

well, i hope he has a fight on his hands.  i hope the british public won't let him get away with robbing from the poor to pay the rich. 

it was almost, always shameful to be 'flashy-rich' in the UK before.  and if you were wealthy then came with that the obligation to help those less well-off.  now for some reason it is the opposite, it is shameful to be poor and if you are rich you have an obligation not to help the poor but spit on them....

materially wealthy - but spiritually and morally completely bankrupt.

 
oops didn't see your post before i posted my long rant again (please ignore --- it just comes flooding out sometimes)

a war that lasted 38 minutes --- did anyone get a medal????

that seems about the right kind of length for a war.  who won?  or does anyone win in any war at the end....  when millions are murdered on both sides.

however, that's particularly female point of view.  i actually think most men like war.  that's why we have so much of it.

not because it is necessary but because they like to do it.

You could almost say the Cuban Missle Crisis had a shorter "war" - undeclared yes - but for around 15 minutes while the blockade was being faced off by russia the superpower's had fingers on the button - awaiting the first launch. Came a hair close to the "big one".

Evolution - perhaps not a perfect theory (it is unless you get a time machine to go back) - but the xtian theory in their book is totally full of even bigger holes from the order of creation (2 different versions in the same book as you read Genesis), the flood, tower of Babel, etc. etc. Dont' believe that no sir.

But - evolution in some form happened.  Little life became bigger life, and so on.  Our genes are all the same but for a few changes here and there. 

Life out there - would be drastically different unless you find a planet that had the same water, gravity, sun, land masses, etc.  We evolved the way we did because we needed trees to protect us - and then had to wander away to keep alive and growing.  If earth had no trees there would be lizards typing these forums today.

I have little doubt that there is life out there.  Not like us at all - but that's the cool part.  We did an experiment in high school with organic solids and methane and an electric arc.  You can make the basic nucleotide chemicals that way - and nature does it in a low-oxygen atmosphere all the time.  Where there's carbon out there - you will find life I'm sure.

 

I'm impressed at your memory of chemistry... it's like a blur of liquids and lab coats and this plus that plus whatever and moles and on and on... was it college? a blur of neverending, underachieving mediocrity...

I always wonder at what point in the history of humanity, we'll find out what kind of life is out there. It's obviously way beyond my lifetime but with the current exponential growth in knowledge, it can't be too far off.

The Bible... I believe it to be full of parables... lessons for learning that while true in some sense, not true in another. I believe there could have been a cataclysmic flood but that it most likely occurred in one small part of the world. After all, they called the Sea of Gallilee a "sea". I've seen that "sea" firsthand and it's really not much more than a large lake. Besides, you can't even see the other side of the great lakes and we don't call them "seas". It's all about perspective. Historically, a person's world was so small and the relative size and seriousness of places and events should bear on any understanding of the past. Even now, we can see the effects of a person's insistance that what someone said hundreds and thousands of years ago should be interpreted literally. Here I go again on my moderation-in-all-things bent... I think that people with ADHD are so much more able to see the 'big picture' than others. We have a perspective that allows us to see relativity in all things.

My favorite explanation of relativity... A man goes into a restaurant and orders a bowl of soup. It comes and there are five hairs in that soup. He yells, "Boy, there's a lot of hair in my soup!" However, the person at the next table would look at his bald head bearing only five hairs and say, "Boy, he doesn't have much hair!" I've always felt that I've been able (for the most part) to see both these sides and give each fair consideration.

See... Glen has a mind that holds knowledge of chemistry that most of us can only gape at. My mind holds knowledge of facts and trivia, mostly related to historical events and esoteric tidbits that no one would ever hold onto. I have a head for useless knowledge. It didn't help in school, however, so it's not a "system". It's just what sticks. We all seem to have the ability to keep information in our brains that we find 'fascinating'. Otherwise, it slips out...

 

... slips out and we trip all over it...

I love trivia, especially when it is tidbits of historical fact. Anyone got any good ones? Here are some that I find quite interesting...

Who was the only president to ever defy a supreme court order? (I mentioned this in another post so it may not be so new.) What do the Vietnamese call the Vietnam war? What president integrated the army? Who was the worst president ever? (rather subjective, eh?) Did you know that the founding fathers wanted to make George Washington king of America and when he turned them down, they elected him president? What was the shortest war on record? What year did Christmas become a national holiday? How many black americans received the medal of honor in the civil war? Which city in the US was the first to fluoridate its water?

When I was in kindergarten I kept a notebook where I would just make lists and lists of stuff like the longest rivers, highest mountains, words in spanish, just stuff I found totally interesting. I'm still like that now. I love learning tidbits of stuff. At work the brass gets great amusement out of asking me what some esoteric word or term means because invariably I know what it means... they're not used to someone like me around there.

And here's one more esoteric bit of unnknowable trivia that is in the realm of things I find fascinating... if we were created in God's image then wouldn't other intelligent life in the universe look remarkably like us? If we were created in God's image then this is the most perfect form for intelligent life (although not perfect in the God sense) and thus any other being created in His image would have to take this form. There wouldn't be two 'perfect' forms, would there? I also like to speculate that any form of intelligence that had evolved enough to go out into the universe and actually find other intelligence would have to be a peaceful civilization because I don't think that we will be able to be that advanced without having reached a more perfect existence where we don't kill people senselessly... HOW's THAT FOR ANNOYINGLY SPECULATIVE?! I've always spent hours wasting my brain time on things I'll never know the answer to.  

 

Holy carp! You know a lot of stuff. Do you have a filing system in your head that you haven't let the rest of us in on yet!?

As far as the Bible goes, it is what it is. Spiritual beliefs of ancient Middle Easterners. It is a collection of tales, legends, lessons, and hallucinations. Just like any sort of compilation of tribal beliefs would be. The point at which someone decides to start taking the Bible or any other religious text as a literal guide to our modern lives is the moment that the realm of reality has been left behind in favor of fantasy. If someone wants to believe that some guy actually fit 7 of every clean animal and 2 of every unclean animal onto a bigazz boat, more power to ya. Just don't expect everyone else ot believe that it actually happened.

I believe they used to dig pits and keep piles of rocks handy for people like me!  

Chemistry fascinated me.  Still does.  I had a very good memory for that - but if you asked me my combination lock number I'd have frozen and have to go to the office to get it again.  Argh.

I was going to get into science - but my grades were far too awful.  I would not do homework - and that put me back down to C+ or B at best. You need to do homework to get As  - so they told me again and again.

When I got into university - the classes were almost totally in-class work.  So - I got "with highest honours".  I chose computers - but in another life I was a scientist - I like the lab coats but they would look dingy on me as I do laundry so poorly.  I could if prompted make high explosives, a plan for a nuke (simplified my atomic science is spotty), or a pretty tasty med.  If I'd gone "bad" somewhere - I"d probably be in jail for meth production.  Then the anti-med guys would be right - can't let that happen!

I still read up on quantum physics - it's fascinating.  I can and have always been able to conceive 13 dimension quantum strata physics - it's impossible to explain in short sentences here - trust me it gives migraines.

History amazes me too - but it's spotty sometimes it has gaps.  We all had to study US history - admittedly it's more interesting as to violent escapades than Canadian history.  But the war of 1812 stuck out - it was ironic history which does tend to hang on in memory best.

I also was good with the panama canal, civil war history, and other minor skirmishes. 

Ancient history I was doing well with in elementary school - then they brought in homework - my nemesis.  Went from soaring to plummeting in one year.

I can still tell you exactly how a mummy is made - from the initial ceremony through extracting the brain and the final placing of the bandages.  That was very interesting to me!!