Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2011 December 1

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December 1

Oldest African American vote

Does history know who were the first African American (free slave) voters or when were the first African American (free slave) votes casted in the United States in the days before the Emancipation Proclamation?--KAVEBEAR (talk) 00:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

In some states free men (whether white or black) have always had the vote. According to our article on Voting rights in the United States#African Americans and poor whites, there were African American voters (both free born and former slaves) in the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and North Carolina who had the vote as far back as 1776 (and perhaps earlier) ... granted not many, but some. Also, some of those States had a property requirement, which limited the franchise... but that was a financial limitation, not a racial one. There were blacks who qualified... and they both could and did vote. Blueboar (talk) 04:19, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Venture Smith was a slave who bought his own freedom and eventually came to own over 100 acres of land and three houses, in Connecticut. He first bought his own land in 1776. I'm unsure of the exact voting laws of the time and place, but as a free, male, land-owning adult, Venture probably had the right to vote. There are probably earlier examples. Pfly (talk) 06:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

This page puts it Although their lives were circumscribed by numerous discriminatory laws even in the colonial period, freed African Americans, especially in the North, were active participants in American society. Black men enlisted as soldiers and fought in the American Revolution and the War of 1812. Some owned land, homes, businesses, and paid taxes. In some Northern cities, for brief periods of time, black property owners voted. Pfly (talk) 06:22, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The earliest freed slave in America I could find was Anthony Johnson of colonial Virginia. He was an indentured servant, became free around 1635, and went on to acquire at least 250 acres of land as well as a number of indentured servants on his own, including, apparently, America's first "true" black slave, John Casor. Colonial Virginian law gave a number of rights to Johnson, but not the right to vote. His life, and the court cases during and after it, set a key precedent for the rights of free blacks in colonial Virginia. I know this doesn't answer the question, but it seemed an interesting tangent. Pfly (talk) 06:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Air Canada strikes

A recent Air Canada strike was narrowly avoided due to Ottawa's intervention. When was the last Air Canada strike? (if there ever was one) I google-fu fails me because all the results pertain to the 2011 strike attempt. On a related note, is there any hidden option in google or any other search engine to search by year? Thanks in advance. 99.245.35.136 (talk) 01:26, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

You could try the advanced search on Google News. It allows you to specify dates, so you could weed out the recent attempt. I tried this and found an averted strike attempt in September as well, but also found story from June 14, 2011. Is that what you're looking for? 24.247.162.139 (talk) 03:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Your first question might be answered at http://www.labourstart.org/.

—Wavelength (talk) 17:20, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

What counts towards GDP?

If my neighbor pays me 1 million to greet him, and I pay him 1 million to be greeted back, we both paid and obtained a service. But would this 1 million moving around count for something? Quest09 (talk) 01:31, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes - you both owe the taxman 600,000. Pay up. Rmhermen (talk) 04:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

GDP can be estimated in a number of different ways, see "Gross domestic product" for more information. Gabbe (talk) 08:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

We don't owe the taxman anything, we produced 1,000,000 in services, and spent 1,000,000, resulting in an income of 0.

The GDP article is not clear if really anything counts, provided it is production, income or expenditure, even phony services like the one I described above. Quest09 (talk) 14:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

No, you produced an income of 1 million. That is what is taxed. Unless you have incorporated yourself, then you have an income of 1 million with a cost of zero so a profit of 1 million which is what is taxed. Rmhermen (talk) 15:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

In the UK and similar fiscal jurisdictions, VAT on the transactions might also be payable - or at least, for sums of this magnitude, HM Revenue and Customs might think it worth while arguing so in court. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.197.66.74 (talk) 16:52, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Even if you did it through a corporation, there would be corporation tax to pay. The greeting you purchased wasn't a cost of producing the greeting you sold, so it doesn't offset the income. --Tango (talk) 19:36, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

The question is not: why people don't do it? If a company does it, it won't be paying VAT or similar taxes in many jurisdictions, and other taxes can be avoided too. The question is if any service counts equally towards the GDP, with its value on the books, no matter if you produce something essential for life or just some phony service, which has just a subjective symbolic value. Obviously people are constantly interchanging services which belongs to the latter group, like astrology, Reiki, whatever. Quest09 (talk) 23:16, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

That is a known problem with GDP - as long as money has been spent, it counts, regardless of whether anything useful was produced. Conversely, if something useful is produced but no money is spent, it doesn't count, so if you mowed your neighbours lawn and then he cleaned your gutters as an exchange of favours with no money changing hands, it doesn't contribute to GDP despite a valuable service having been provided. The standard example is breaking a window. When you fix it, that counts towards GDP, so breaking windows makes it look as though your economy is doing better. That's clearly a strange result - keeping the window intact and spending that money on something else would surely be better. This effect can be very large following a natural disaster, such as the recent Tsunami in Japan. Japan's GDP dropped massively immeadiately after the disaster because no-one could produce anything, but it has now massively increased because things have got running again and lots of money is being spent on rebuilding, which all counts towards GDP. That is typical of a natural disaster's impact on GDP. --Tango (talk) 13:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

To give the simple answer (from the GDP article) "refers to the market value of all final goods and services produced within a country." In your example you produced the service of a greeting worth $1 million and your friend also produced the service of a greeting worth $1 million so the GDP of the two of you would be $2 million. 124.170.69.134 (talk) 17:46, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd say it won't count: greetings do not have any market value, so your little trick is just a case of white collar criminality. You both are blowing the books of your companies, what a shame. 88.8.70.171 (talk) 22:21, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Legal term for ambiguous clause interpreted strictly

What is the legal term for when an ambiguous clause is interpreted by its immediate context to be referring to only things in that context? I know there is a term, and IIRC the Supreme Court of the US recently used it at some point.

For example, if a law stated "tigers, lions, panthers, cougars, and other felidae are prohibited as house pets," the judiciary would not interpret felidae to apply to domestic cats, but to big cats in general. The idea is that if the original intent of the law had been to include small cats, it would have included it under one of the examples given beforehand, but specifically didn't. As such, the framers of the law clearly meant tigers, lions, panthers, cougars as an explanation of the type of felidae (i.e., big cats), but due to oversight or ambiguity misused the term felidae, not realizing it was so inclusive. Magog the Ogre (talk) 01:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

You might be talking about the Golden rule (law), Mischief rule or Purposive rule. Generally u can look at Statutory interpretation. ќמшמφטтгמ^torque 05:50, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Specifically, Statutory interpretation#Internal and external consistency, which talks about "ejusdem generis". I believe that is the rule you are looking for. --Tango (talk) 19:39, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Where do White Men find their Asian Wives?

Where do most white American men find their east asian and southeast asian wives? Did most of these white men go to Asia and find their asian wives or did most of them simply find their asian wives locally? 99.245.83.28 (talk) 04:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

What would serve as a source of statistics on this? From where would such information be available? Bus stop (talk) 04:20, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

While there are certainly cases of GIs returning home with Asian "war brides" after WWII, Korea, and Vietnam, I would say most mixed (white/asian) couples met locally in the States. Blueboar (talk) 04:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

There are also the, so called, mail order brides. Dismas|^(talk) 04:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Just remember to poke breathing holes into the shipping container. :-) StuRat (talk) 05:12, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Cruelly parodied by TV comedy Little Britain in their characters Dudley and Ting Tong: Dudley Punt ordered a Thai bride from a magazine. However, Ting Tong Macadangdang is quite the opposite of the slim, beautiful bride Dudley was expecting. He is not very happy about this. Ting Tong: "Pwease Mr. Dudwey! Did you have good time?" Dudley: "Maybe just... ONE more night..." Alansplodge (talk) 09:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Many Americans are doing increasing amounts of business in the Far East (initially with Japan, now China, etc).[1][2] On the other hand, a lot of Chinese, etc, come to the west to study[3]. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:13, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Or they meet them at work, or in school, or in their everyday lives, particularly if they live in the city. Come on, don't think too hard about this. There are plenty of Asian women in North America, plenty of whom are perfectly willing to marry white people because they love them. 207.81.30.213 (talk) 19:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I suppose most interracial Asian-white couples met in the West. The reason is simple: Asians tend to be much better integrated in countries like Canada, UK and the US than Westerners in China or Vietnam, not even being able to speak a little bit of the language after some years of expat life. Quest09 (talk) 23:53, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

How many white American men have married their asian wives in America and how many white American went oversea and married their asian wives? Any statistics? 99.245.83.28 (talk) 02:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Famous black Americans named after famous whites

It seems to me that a disproportionate percentage of famous black US citizens are named after famous whites. For example, we have George Washington Carver named after George Washington, Martin Luther King, Jr. named after Martin Luther (indirectly, as his father was named after him first), George Clinton (musician) named after George Clinton (vice president), and George Wallace (American comedian) named after George Wallace. (I wonder why so many George's, too.) It's possible that a couple of those are coincidences. So, was this a trend at one point, for black parents to name their kids after famous whites, or is this just confirmation bias on my part ? StuRat (talk) 05:10, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Well I checked all 4 of those people. The only one which mentions being named after the famous person you list is Martin Luther King, Sr.. In the specific case of George Washington Carver, the history makes it sound like he probably wasn't named after George Washington, and this ref [4] seems to confirm that. It's possible the reason he took Washington was partly out of George Washington, but this is unclear and may be indirect even if it is the case (e.g. he took the name Washington because it was famous rather then specifically thinking of George Washington). I don't know about the rest, but considering the comedian was born in 1952 in Georgia and the only real notable thing the other George Wallace seems to have done by then was being a Circuit Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit in Alabama, it sounds to me like you're reading way to much in a person having the same given name, a fairly common one at that, as some other random famous person. Similarly for all we know the parents of the musician may have been naming him after George Washington or some random other person (who may or may not have been named after some other George), if he was named after someone. P.S. To be honest, being part Chinese and only having a Chinese name, I've never really understood the urge to name a child after someone famous or a relative anyway. Nil Einne (talk) 05:32, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

As Nil Einne notes, I don't think any of those except Martin Luther King, Sr. actually qualifies as anything more than a random coincidence; after all lots of famous people share names, and aren't necessarily named for each other. And one data point to throw it in a different direction: White people named after Native Americans, see William Tecumseh Sherman. Just because I found one, doesn't make it a trend. --Jayron32 05:40, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

(EC)How do you conclude that the black comedian George Wallace (born 1952) was named after the 1960's southern Governor George Wallace, when the comedian's father was named George Wallace Sr.? Did the politician use a time machine to travel back and get the comedian's grandparents to name their child after him? A factor in the relation you spotted was that many blacks came from the South, and many slave holders gave slaves the same last names as the owners. Many famous whites in the early US were from the South, like Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe. In contrast to famous black people named after slave owners, there is Cassius Clay, who was named for a famous abolitionist, Cassius Marcellus Clay (politician), but who gave himself an Arabic-sounding name when he was 22 years old. Ironically , Arabs were noted slave exporters from Africa. Edison (talk) 05:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, George Wallace is withdrawn from the list and Cassius Clay is added. StuRat (talk) 05:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

(e.c.) StuRat, you're talking about at least two different things--given names and surnames. On surnames, there's a couple of hints at Slave name#African Americans and African-American culture#Names. As for given names, like the George Washington of George Washington Carver, the practice was not limited to black Americans. If my own family tree is any indication, it was a popular practice in the 19th century. From 1830 to the 1860s my (extended) family tree includes James Madison Sooter, Benjamin Franklin Sooter, Martin Van Buren Sooter, Christopher Columbus Fly, and Andrew Jackson Fly--just to pick off the most obvious examples. These folks were mostly of English ancestry and living in the Tennessee-Arkansas-Missouri area. Pfly (talk) 05:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks. So it was a trend, but not one limited to blacks. Was it limited to Americans ? StuRat (talk) 05:55, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Are you asking if only Americans name their children after famous historical figures? --Jayron32 06:00, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm asking if they named their children after famous historical figures disproportionately more than parents in other nations, during the 19th and 20th centuries, yes. StuRat (talk) 06:08, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know how would could possibly discern that. Most names correlate with something historical — e.g. out of the Bible or something similar. Huge swathes of British girls at any one time have middle names that coincide with whomever the current Queen is. Is naming someone "Adam" naming them after an historical figure? How could you discern that from naming them after a grandparent or friend? How could you gauge intent from the name alone? I doubt people have been doing surveys on this for over a century... --Mr.98 (talk) 12:46, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that per the article on the person and ref I provided above, the GWC case is unclear. The name George came from his parents. The middle name Washingston was taken later in live because he wanted one. Whether he was inspired by GW directly or indirectly isn't knowspecified. Nil Einne (talk) 07:00, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Edison, good to note that. I got distracted when looking at the article so forgot to check his father's name. It makes even less sense now to include George Wallace Nil Einne (talk) 06:54, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

And Martin Luther King, Sr. doesn't fit in with this either; he chose that name himself and bestowed it on his son. (Even though the doctor assumed incorrectly that the son's name was to be the same as his father's original name, Michael.) --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 16:06, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Good point, I forgot that when answering. So it seems the only one one who we are sure who's name came from a 'famous white person' took the name themselves and the rest there's no evidence and in one case much evidence it didn't happen in that way. Nil Einne (talk) 08:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Jackie Robinson's middle name was Roosevelt, in reference to the then-recently-deceased Theodore Roosevelt. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 09:05, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

There was a fad in the UK in the 1970s for naming babies after American Civil War generals. There is a whole generation of young men called Lee, Grant or Jackson. I have no idea why and neither, I suspect, did their parents. Alansplodge (talk) 10:25, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

What, no little Hookers and Picketts ? :-) StuRat (talk) 05:16, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

Metropole Hotel, Belfast

Resolved

Would anyone happen to know the exact location of the old Metropole Hotel in Belfast? It was demolished many years ago. Thank you.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:21, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

95 Donegall Street. Warofdreams talk 10:04, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Lovely. Thank you ever so much, Warofdreams! Cheers.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:10, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Midrash Citation Help?

I need help finding the source for this citation:

Bemidb. R. 15 (ed. Warsh, p. 63 a, lines 9 and 8 from bottom)

It was in a book by Edersheim, but I need the original source. I believe it's from Midrash Rabbah (probably from Bamidmar?), but I can't figure out what page/section/edition it's from. Are there any Jewish Scholars out there who might be able to help? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.145.177.49 (talk) 14:59, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Presumably chapter ("parshah") 15 in the Bemidbar Section of Medrash Rabbah. The chapters aren't that long, but you may have to search through the chapter. The Bemidbar section is the fourth (bereshis, shemos, and vayikra obviously come before it), though sections don't seem to necessarily correlate to volumes. 58.111.171.35 (talk) 15:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Trilingualism in Pakistan and India

Are all Indians and Pakistanis trilingual? I asked this because I remember after Indian National Congress the last election, Pranab Mukherjee said that if he was a the Prime Minister, he would speak Hindi which he doesn't. So, I want to know if there is a stats that show how many Pakistanis and Indians are trilingual and how are bilingual in terms of speaking national language and English only (Bengali, Punjabi, Marathi, etc.) and bilingual in terms of speaking national languages and Urdu and Hindi (Bengali, Punjabi, Sindhi etc.). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.17.21 (talk) 18:56, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

There are articles titled Languages of India and Languages of Pakistan which may help you answer your question. If those articles do not, there may be bluelinks to other Wikipedia articles from those articles, or references or external links which also might. I would start there. --Jayron32 19:02, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

I'm certain that not all Indians and Pakistanis are trilingual. Surely there are villagers who are monolingual and many people who are merely bilingual. While traveling in India, I found that most Indians could not converse in English (though they might know a few words). Indians' second language is often not English but another regional language such as Tamil in the South or Hindi in the North. (Note that even in the states where Hindi is the official language there are many dialects that are not mutually intelligible with Hindi.) Marco polo (talk) 21:34, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

People who have never visited India tend to grossly overestimate the English proficiency of the Indian population. I remember that some years ago the census determined that only 9% (!) could speak English fluently. Quest09 (talk) 21:45, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

From our Urdu article: "Standard Urdu is mutually intelligible with Standard Hindi. Both languages share the same Indic base and are so similar in phonology and grammar that they appear to be one language." Alansplodge (talk) 10:18, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Robin Hood's king

Simon Schama includes the following comment in chapter 3 of his Landscape and Memory (middle of page 149 of my edition, November 1996 printing of the paperback Vintage Books edition) about the king — "usually called Edward, not Richard, in the early ballads". Conversely, Keith Thomas' review of the book in the 21 September 1995 edition of the New York Review of Books says that this is an obvious error on Schama's part. Any clue who's right here? I've never before heard this idea, and I'm not at all familiar with the original Robin Hood ballads. Nyttend (talk) 20:29, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

This is what I can piece together from the Robin Hood article and others. In the earliest known Robin Hood ballad, Robin Hood and the Monk, the king is not named. However, one very early reference to Robin Hood in a (semi-)historical annal by Andrew of Wyntoun places Robin Hood's exploits in the year 1283, which would have occured during the reign of Edward Longshanks, but the use of Robin Hood in that work is very brief and not with much context; Andrew of Wyntoun's work wasn't really a "Robin Hood Ballad", rather it looks more like it was a historical poem about Scottish history that mentions Robin Hood and Little John in passing. Perhaps this is what Schama is talking about, but I would hardly consider this to be a "usual mention" about Robin Hood. However, our article also notes that some accounts place Robin Hood as a contemporary of Simon de Montfort, which would place him during the reign of Henry III. Apparently A Gest of Robyn Hode, written in 1475 and thus an "early ballad" names "Edward" as Robin's king (without indicating which Edward). Of course, the more modern stories place Robin Hood in the context of King Richard the Lionhearted and King John during the Third Crusade. --Jayron32 20:57, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Our own Robin Hood article points to an early ballad called A Gest of Robyn Hode and states that this ballad refers to the king as "Edward". However, the Gest article does not mention this directly, except to say that "it is believed the content of the tale dates to the time of Edward III between the 1330s and 1340s." There are some links to versions of the Gest tale and although my middle English is not good (OK, it doesn't exist), I can clearly see Edwarde mentioned, so to my mind, it appears the Schama is correct. For what it's worth, neither of the two articles I've linked appear to use Schama as a reference. --LarryMac | Talk 21:01, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Edward is the "kynge" in that ballad, yeah. Up until the 16th century, when a king was present in the ballads, and was named, it was usually "Edward", so the stories were generally supposed to take place in the 14th century. In the 16th and 17th centuries he started to be associated with Richard I, apparently starting with John Muir, and popularized by The Downfall and The Death of Robert Earl of Huntington series of plays. I'm not sure why Thomas thought Schama was in error. Aside from Schama, see also "Imagining Robin Hood: The Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context" by A. J. Pollard. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:44, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

When/ if science proves there is no god or that god is not necessary

When, or if, science proves that the catalyst for the big bang was not a divine entity, what will religions do? Will they rewrite their scriptures or maintain a bigoted stance that it was all the will of god or will they re-write their scriptures so that instead the focus is on god as a father concerned with our spiritual wellbeing, rather than as a creator? Is this something that any religion has ever considered?

The reference desk doesn't do speculation. However, we really don't need to in this case, since science will never disprove the existence of god(s). It's not a falsifiable hypothesis since an omnipotent god could fake the result of any experiment meaning you can't distinguish between an experiment that shows there is no god and a god making it look like an experiment that shows there is no god. --Tango (talk) 23:12, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Science can't prove everything. I can't see how it could ever solve the problem of the first cause. Even if we can somehow determine that the Big Bang was an offshoot of a meta-universe, and can explain what caused the meta-universe to shoot off our universe, one can always ask what created the meta-universe. The Big Bang theory was thought up later than all major religions began, so I don't see how any religion is particularly dependent on that theory, even if it does tie in somewhat nicely with the concept of creation. -- Mwalcoff (talk) 23:25, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

"First cause" is not a good argument. First, it goes both ways. And secondly, it presupposes that every effect needs a cause. There are plenty of quantum effects which seems to work fine without apparent cause, so that assumption is seriously unconvincing. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:35, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

It also assumes that there isn't just a sequence of cause and effect going back in time infinitely far. If something in a meta-universe caused the big bang, there is no reason to assume that meta-universe has a beginning. --Tango (talk) 13:32, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Science doesn't prove anything, but it does disprove things. A single observation that is contrary to the predictions of a theory disproves that theory (although you to be careful of experimental error - the prediction and the observation may not be what you think they are if you didn't do the experiment you thought you were doing). If you make a falsifiable claim about a god, then science can disprove it if it is, indeed, false (that's what falsifiable means). There are numerous claims in the Bible, for example, that are falsifiable and have been proven false (the usual response by theists is to say those weren't real claims and were just figurative). --Tango (talk) 13:32, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

They'll do what they've been doing for the last few centuries as things attributable to divine intervention or miracle have been explained as rational, materialistic processes. God retreats into the gaps, and becomes a bit more all-present but not interventionist, and then there's always falling back on faith. Rewriting of scriptures is uncommon. Reinterpretation of scriptures is not entirely uncommon. Reinterpretation of the science to allow for divine guidance — without miracles — is exceptionally common (e.g. theistic evolution, which happens to be entirely indistinguishable from naturalistic evolution). --Mr.98 (talk) 23:43, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Science's job is to tell us how the universe started... Religion's job is to tell us why. Blueboar (talk) 00:16, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Strange, IMHO most religions don't tell us why god (insert name here) would have created the universe. I mean, I have read a bit of Genesis and it says that God created the universe in 6 days and that "it was good". But his reasons why are left a mystery. Perhaps he was lonely or bored. Flamarande (talk) 00:24, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Scripture may not give the answer... but there is more to religion than scripture. The question "why" is still central to religion in general. Just ask any Rabbi, Imam or Priest. Blueboar (talk) 01:11, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

It's also important to keep in mind that science doesn't "prove" anything. Science makes observations and constructs models of how things "appear" to work. The Big Bang is not a "proven fact", it's a scientific theory based on the best evidence we have. As knowledge evolves, scientific theories evolve. Those theories may well demonstrate that God is not "needed" in order to explain the physical universe. It's not proof of non-existence. Nor is faith proof of existence. However, faith does demonstrate that a significant number of humans "need" God. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 08:59, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

By that argument, you can also support the claim that a significant number of humans "need" Oprah Winfrey. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:56, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Not all religions need a God, you know, neither do they need a Creator. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:08, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Science is about presenting evidence to support or refute a hypothesis. If science provides strong evidence that it was, in fact, not a god who created the universe, then that would be a major problem for many religions; I do not know how they would adapt, and certainly they would lose many followers. However, even if I put my religious beliefs on the back burner, I cannot fathom how science could prove the very first thing that ever spontaneously came to be. That may be that it is just way beyond the scope of my comprehension, but again, you have to prove that nothing existed before something existed. How do you prove that nothing existed, even if it's true? That leads me to another question, which may be a little philosophical in nature. "Nothing", the concept, is the absence of anything. Has science ever verified that the concept of "nothing" really exists (is it possible for there to actually be nothing), or is it just accepted on the basis of not "something"? I'm not sure if I worded that well, as it's not an easy question to express. (edit: I'm creating this as a new question). Falconus^{p t c} 10:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

The first task in proving or disproving the existence of God would be to define what God is (or would be), and that would probably bring the effort to a screeching halt. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:09, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. Science can't prove that there aren't any gods, but it can prove there isn't a specific god (say, the god described in the Bible). If you can agree on an exact definition of god, then you can actually start to analyse the question scientifically. Getting that agreement tends to be rather hard, though, since theists are inclined to change their definition when the first one is disproven (which is what scientists do as well, of course - if one theory is disproved, then you come up with a new one - but there are differences in the method used to come up with the replacement). --Tango (talk) 13:42, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Tango for pointing out earlier the dubious value of this question for the ref desk, although I think now we're starting to head into well-worn territory. I can suggest to the OP that Wikipedia has it's own article on God that we could refer him to, and he could also look up the Starlight problem to see how religions even now address the problem of scientific evidence (though Mr.98 has already given some good insights). Alternatively, we could just point out that God even has His own talk page, so the OP might want to take it up with Him there - although He seems a bit aloof lately. IBE (talk) 17:14, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

Windows or open square on boat?

Alright, this should be an easy question. I just re-watched Titanic recently, and I realized when Rose jumped off of the lifeboat to get back to Jack, she jumped into one of the square holes on the side of the boat to get onto one of the decks. (I have no clue what its called, but that's not the question.) Now, the Queen Mary 2 has similar holes to the ones on Titanic, as do most ships. I assume that having a hole like that open with a railing would be dangerous to people that may get to close and could fall off into the water, but do modern ships (like the Queen Mary 2) have a glass protection where these holes are, or is it just a railing? (Refer to this if it helps, the "square holes" I'm talking about are near the middle of the ship in white.) 64.229.180.189 (talk) 23:47, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

One has to have some kind of sick twisted masochistic mind to watch Titanic a second time...

In essence different ships have each type of aperture, glazed or open with railing, and in the case of a cruise ship a mix of those.

It's not apparent from that image which QM has although you'll note that there is a differene between those that are clearly glazed and some of the others. Zooming in starts to show what appear to be rails in those apertures and the ones below. You'll noe that on eht weather deck above the rails are quite tall.

The architectural issue is finding the balance between safety of the passenger and their experience. Whilst some will want the sterile disconnected experience of staying behind glass panes others will want to be more exposed. The architect can do as much as possible to minimise the risk but that does have to be balanced with the experience one is looking for.

ALR (talk) 11:22, 2 December 2011 (UTC)