What is a possible explanation for an event in nature?
458404
It floods because there is too much rain for the ground to absorb it.
861786
Call newschannel 3, I bet they would look into it.  Royal Norman may even already have an answer.  I have not seen them, though I live very close to you.  I'll have to keep my eye on the SE sky.  Do they occur at a certain time, or various times?  Are they low to the horizon?
1015747
Your additional detail is interesting, and if I read that right, it poses the question that can our own spirit can control the force of nature?  I've heard about this phenomenon being an eastern philosophy, but is lost on the western world.  To furthur explain this, there is an idea floating around that western society has lost a certain mode of prayer, a prayer in which we pray of events of circumstances in a state of mind suggesting they have already occurred.  In other words, instead of praying for rain, pray in a way that you visualize that rain has already happened, and it will happen.  \n  That might of been way off topic as your original question dealt with wiccan religion, as I do not know if anything I have said previously can tie into that.  If you'd like to learn more about how this lost mode of prayer, and how it also physically affects even the tiniest particles around us, check out this link:  http://www.greggbraden.com/lost_mode.php3
774181
Hmm ... you started out by asking about the origin of the universe, but then started talking about the odds of certain features of life (cleavage of zygotes, shrinking of genetic code). \n\nSo the first thing is that there are 3 very separate types of event:\n1) The origin of the universe (the big bang).\n2) The origin of life on earth (abiogenesis);\n3) The origin of certain features of cellular life (the examples you bring up).\n\nWith regards to #1, the origin of the universe, we just don't have enough information about whether CHANCE or GOD is the best contender.  Why?  Because we have no way yet to describe the conditions before the big bang, as even the concept of "before" has no meaning.  So the jury's still out on this one.\n\nWith regards to #2, the origin of life on earth, CHANCE is the stongest contender from a *scientific* point of view.  Even if we compute the odds of life on earth to be one in a trillion ... but there are 10 trillion planets in the universe, then we would expect life to have emerged about 10 times.  I think the odds are a lot higher than 1 in a trillion, and there are a lot more than 10 trillion planets ... but all it needs is ONE hit, ONE home run.  That would be us.  \n\nWith respect to #3, all the examples you raise, no scientist credits pure CHANCE with these events.  That is the deep significance of the theory of natural selection.  Natural selection is not pure CHANCE, but rather CHANCE + selection ... and selection is *not* random, *not* pure CHANCE.  Selection is the unrelenting reward of slight advantage, no matter how small and it is not random.  CHANCE is involved in the random production of new variations ... but it is *not* invoved in which one of those propagate better. If CHANCE (random genetic recombination) produces a million possibilities, if 5 of those confer some slight advantage, then those 5 will propagate through the population faster than all the others.  That fact has nothing to do with CHANCE.\n\nIncidentally, your "shrinking of the genetic code" example is odd. You speak as if life had a huge information storage problem, and *then* had to come up with a way to "shrink" that information.  It worked the other way around ... the genetic code was in place before the first cellular organisms (much less multicellular zygotes), and was enormously expandable.  Life never had to "shrink" its genetic code ... by being based on molecules (and what else could it be based on?), the genetic code was already a tiny format.\n\nI.e. humans have an information storage problem because we work in the macroworld.  We have to lay out plans for the Q.Mary in big blueprints because our eyes could not process it if reduced to the size of a pin.  So the problem of shrinking it to the size of a pin is a unique problem for *us*.  (And we have demonstrated, through nano-technology, that it is possible.)  It is not a problem for life ... it doesn't have to read big blueprints, like that of the Q. Mary.  Smallness is built in.
1100771
What is there to explain???
2114
There are many things in nature that we come up with symbols to describe.  We invented the symbols to describe it; however, we did not invent the natural phenomenon.\n\nFor example circles are all over the place in nature.  If you divide the circumference of a circle by it's diameter the result is pi.  We invented the term "Pi" to describe this; however, we did not invent the natural phenomenon.
945352
Then defend it... I say that there is no way that a random chance process could have formed life forming proteins and DNA with their unique chirality. If proteins and DNA were formed by chance  each and every one of the components would be a 50/50 mixture of the two optical isomers. This is not what we see in natural proteins or in natural DNA. How can a random chance natural process create proteins with thousands of "L" molecules, and then also create DNA with billions of "R" molecules? Does this sound like random chance or a product of design? Even if \nthere were a magic process to introduce chirality, it would only create one isomer. If such a process existed, we do not know anything about it or how it would work. If it did exist, how were compounds with the other chirality ever formed? Even if there were two magical processes, one for each isomer, what determined which process  was used and when it was used, if this was a random chance natural process? The idea of two processes requires a controlling mechanism, and this kind of control is not possible in a random chance natural process.\nYou are an intelligent man alot smarter than a mere theist so I don't think I need to explain chirality more thoroughly. You just need to defend your statement... Too bad you can't now that you have this informant ion.....   Jim
554313
Albert Einstein stated something along the lines of; "There may not be a single history (regarding the earth coming into existence) as we may have supposed. Rather, every possible history with some probability." Or in other words, there are many possible ways to explain the fact that we are here and living right now. Some of those ideas are more probable than others and some explanations are more likely than others. Bottom line is, when a hypothesis is brought forth and has physical evidence to support itself without being intelligently refuted, the hypothesis becomes theory. Only those unwilling to explore the realm of possibility close their minds to the many other intelligent theories concerning our existence which can be found in the world today.
193059
The why would come down to the laws of nature
587804
That's hard, not sure. Just to guess depending on the species, a bat would tell time from photosensitivity as an example. Most birds may tell time the same or according to temperature changes. Now i'm gonna guess stupid, but i think fish tell time due to gravitational forces of the tide according with the moon. Someone debated me on that one before and said "What if the moon isn't out?"  My response was that the moon is omnipresent orbiting the Earth; thing is, its simply in another hemisphere.  As I said, not sure, just guesses.  Perhaps physicist Steven Hawking thought about that at one point...lol.
126549
There are a lot of things science cannot and I believe never will be able to explain.  Particularly the behavior of human beings!
392374
I was fox hunting with my ex wife's uncle one night. It was a clear sky and stars everywhere. We were walking through a meadowfield and all of a sudden everything lit up around us like it was daylight. As quick as it happened it was over. We looked at each other startled and still to this day don't have answers. There was no noise and nothing in the sky.
715652
for the same reason there are a multitude of books on any natural phenomenon, there is always new things to learn about them. Personally though, I am more into learning through experience :)
112400
*Pondering a long time on this* My visual description would be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Escher_Waterfall.jpg\n\nScientifically, A waterfall is usually a geological formation resulting from water, often in the form of a stream (or river) flowing over an erosion-resistant rock formation that forms a sudden break in elevation. Some waterfalls form in mountain environments where erosion is rapid and stream courses may be subject to sudden and catastrophic change. In such cases, the waterfall may not be the end product of many years of water action over a region, but rather the result of relatively sudden geological processes such as thrust faults or volcanic action. Waterfalls may also be artificial.\nGreat waterfall info at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterfall\n\nMy personal description, absolutely lovely...
954196
As far as my knowledge goes, the evolutional theory states that all existence occured due to coincidence. A marvelous 'coincidence' if you ask me.  I would like to believe that a higher power made this coincidence happen...
542027
Reminder: 5n Theory, all continents used to be attached to one another- so in theory this is highly possible- if two of every species has moved from place to place. Also remember, animals have a good sense of unusual events happening, like earthquakes and things, so they might have had the sense to know where to go. Then you might ask about the unicorns, but it is said that they were too stubborn to get on the ship... dragons and pegasuses... I have no idea about.
203884
Absolutely!  There are a lot of things that go on around us that we have no explanations for.  Science can only answer so much, but there are certain occurances that have no explanation.\n\nFor me, paranormal means "our of the ordinary", so it includes alien encounters, spiritual encounters, and other odd, but natural, phenomena.  \n\nFrom personal experience, I know that the Paranormal exists!