http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news1_head_dn14094
QuoteTwenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations.
The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens.
Mostly, the patterns Lenski saw were similar in each separate population. All 12 evolved larger cells, for example, as well as faster growth rates on the glucose they were fed, and lower peak population densities.
But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations – the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.
Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity.
"It's the most profound change we have seen during the experiment. This was clearly something quite different for them, and it's outside what was normally considered the bounds of E. coli as a species, which makes it especially interesting," says Lenski.
The even funnier part of this is that human stain/founder of Conservapedia Andy Schlafly accused Lenski of fraud and demanded to see all of the raw data. He promptly got pwned in the face!!!
http://acandidworld.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/beneficial-mutations-in-bacteria-wherein-conservapedia-is-pwned-take-ii-andy-schlaflys-lawyer-gambit-fails/
Interesting indeed. I just point at the Galapagos for proof.
Quote from: The Reverend Asshat on June 26, 2008, 01:54:16 AM
Interesting indeed. I just point at the Galapagos for proof.
You would think that that would be enough evidence for most people...
Fight fire with fire. If some faithfool wants to argue the toss just tell them you need to have faith in evolution - we know evolution is true because we evolved from monkeys and we know that we evolved from monkeys because evolution is true Cue, Eee and fucking Dee 8)
Quote from: SillyCybin on June 26, 2008, 03:16:23 PM
Fight fire with fire. If some faithfool wants to argue the toss just tell them you need to have faith in evolution - we know evolution is true because we evolved from monkeys and we know that we evolved from monkeys because evolution is true Cue, Eee and fucking Dee 8)
It's my right as a man to be a monkey!
And I'm honestly surprised that this is news-worthy. Considering that speciation has been observed E. Coli evolving really isn't that special.
Don't many of the pro-creationism crowd shift the goalposts by claiming that this is micro-evolution whereas they dispute macro-evolution? Because they noticed evolution in the case of British moths a good long time ago as well (white moths who lived on white trees, pollution made the trees black, the white moths all got eaten but the strange black moth mutation that occasionally cropped up survived and that became the majority of the species. Ironically, anti-pollution measures have now allowed the trees to go white again and all the black moths are getting wiped out by predators).
Quote from: Cain on June 26, 2008, 04:44:32 PM
Don't many of the pro-creationism crowd shift the goalposts by claiming that this is micro-evolution whereas they dispute macro-evolution? Because they noticed evolution in the case of British moths a good long time ago as well (white moths who lived on white trees, pollution made the trees black, the white moths all got eaten but the strange black moth mutation that occasionally cropped up survived and that became the majority of the species. Ironically, anti-pollution measures have now allowed the trees to go white again and all the black moths are getting wiped out by predators).
Yep. This is the usual fight, the difference between
evolution of a species and
evolution into a new species... of course, the whole argument lies in LABELS. "Species" exist only because we make up the words and make up the taxonomic models. Hell, most biologists I know consider the Taxonomic Tree a convenient tool to compare similarities between groups, but not some hard and fast truth. Creationists, on the other hand, confuse the map and the territory ;-)
Kingdom, Phylum, Order, Family, Genus, Species <----- Pretend Order we stuck over Chaos ;-)
Quote from: Cain on June 26, 2008, 04:44:32 PM
Don't many of the pro-creationism crowd shift the goalposts by claiming that this is micro-evolution whereas they dispute macro-evolution? Because they noticed evolution in the case of British moths a good long time ago as well (white moths who lived on white trees, pollution made the trees black, the white moths all got eaten but the strange black moth mutation that occasionally cropped up survived and that became the majority of the species. Ironically, anti-pollution measures have now allowed the trees to go white again and all the black moths are getting wiped out by predators).
Hell, there are some Creationists who are saying that the peppered moths were a complete hoax.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i3/moths.asp
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 26, 2008, 05:03:23 PM
Quote from: Cain on June 26, 2008, 04:44:32 PM
Don't many of the pro-creationism crowd shift the goalposts by claiming that this is micro-evolution whereas they dispute macro-evolution? Because they noticed evolution in the case of British moths a good long time ago as well (white moths who lived on white trees, pollution made the trees black, the white moths all got eaten but the strange black moth mutation that occasionally cropped up survived and that became the majority of the species. Ironically, anti-pollution measures have now allowed the trees to go white again and all the black moths are getting wiped out by predators).
Yep. This is the usual fight, the difference between evolution of a species and evolution into a new species... of course, the whole argument lies in LABELS. "Species" exist only because we make up the words and make up the taxonomic models. Hell, most biologists I know consider the Taxonomic Tree a convenient tool to compare similarities between groups, but not some hard and fast truth. Creationists, on the other hand, confuse the map and the territory ;-)
Kingdom, Phylum, Order, Family, Genus, Species <----- Pretend Order we stuck over Chaos ;-)
Yeah, species are... confusing. There is only a barrier in sexually reproducing organisms. And the vast majority of life doesn't reproduce sexually (bacteria and archaea). Hell, there's even life out there that steals the genes of other organisms. They're called bdelloid rotifers. (http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0050099)
By the way, biologists tend not to worry about whether something is microevolution or macroevolution because the mechanism is the same damn thing.
Oh yeah, I know that...I'm just saying the Fundies wont be happy until you make one creature turn into a totally different one in front of their eyes.
And then they will charge you with devil sorcery.
Quote from: Cain on June 27, 2008, 09:37:53 AM
Oh yeah, I know that...I'm just saying the Fundies wont be happy until you make one creature turn into a totally different one in front of their eyes.
And then they will charge you with devil sorcery.
I don't think they'll be happy with that. I've had a creationist say to me that scientists could build up a human being from scratch and it wouldn't make a bit of difference. Mind you, this is also the guy who says that "reality can take a hike."
Well, if they respected facts and evidence, they wouldn't be Fundies, would they....?
many of them describe evolution as if species can cross over into different linages, and use that idea as proof against evolution ... ie and dog/penquin
and i suspect many of them know thats misrepresenting the theory and i really believe many of them know they are wrong
and you know what I dont think they care
when you have so much of your emotions and life invested in an abstraction truth and rational doesn't even factor into the equation
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 28, 2008, 03:34:50 AM
many of them describe evolution as if species can cross over into different linages, and use that idea as proof against evolution ... ie and dog/penquin
and i suspect many of them know thats misrepresenting the theory and i really believe many of them know they are wrong
and you know what I dont think they care
when you have so much of your emotions and life invested in an abstraction truth and rational doesn't even factor into the equation
Oh no, I have to disagree... having once been a Fundie. I was a good student in school, I got good grades in Science, but I was sure that Evolution was a crock of shit. I absolutely thought that "Missing Link" was a valid argument and that there was no real evidence of one animal turning into another. Of course, I also believed that Carbon Dating was a fraud and that pillow lava had been found on Mt. Ararat proving that it was once covered in water.
Oh and I absolutely believed that there was secular evidence for Jesus.
The Reality Tunnel I lived in saw plenty of evidence to support these positions and no evidence to support the reverse. At this point, I've decided that evolution seems likely to be a key mechanism, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn 100 years from now that we're missing some huge hunks of what really happened (panspermia, bdelloid rotifers carrying DNA from one entity to another playing Lincoln Logs with DNA, accidental trash dump from a passing space ship...) but that, I think, is because I fully expect to get another major surprise like I got when I suddenly stumbled on the supporting evidence for evolution.
In my experience, most fundies aren't fooling themselves... they simply have a very restrictive reality tunnel.
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 30, 2008, 03:27:12 PM
Oh no, I have to disagree... having once been a Fundie. I was a good student in school, I got good grades in Science, but I was sure that Evolution was a crock of shit. I absolutely thought that "Missing Link" was a valid argument and that there was no real evidence of one animal turning into another. Of course, I also believed that Carbon Dating was a fraud and that pillow lava had been found on Mt. Ararat proving that it was once covered in water.
you actually proved my point
what their evidence states is unrealistic cause having bearing in reality will never be part of the thought process
God is all
having fundies except evidence is like having Pushtruns march for womens right
it just doesn't factor into the equation
they don't need to fool themselves cause this life means nothing to what they see as the "ultimate truth"
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 30, 2008, 03:52:16 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 30, 2008, 03:27:12 PM
Oh no, I have to disagree... having once been a Fundie. I was a good student in school, I got good grades in Science, but I was sure that Evolution was a crock of shit. I absolutely thought that "Missing Link" was a valid argument and that there was no real evidence of one animal turning into another. Of course, I also believed that Carbon Dating was a fraud and that pillow lava had been found on Mt. Ararat proving that it was once covered in water.
you actually proved my point
what their evidence states is unrealistic cause having bearing in reality will never be part of the thought process
God is all
having fundies except evidence is like having Pushtruns march for womens right
it just doesn't factor into the equation
they don't need to fool themselves cause this life means nothing to what they see as the "ultimate truth"
Err, my comment was in response to:
Quotei suspect many of them know thats misrepresenting the theory and i really believe many of them know they are wrong
BEyond that, yeah... scientific evidence has little value in their model of reality.
ok it was grammer stupidity on my part
in my defence im starting my packing here
i didn't mean they are wrong in general against the theory but in with the evidence that is presented (though many of them don't care if they think the theory is right or not)
ie. "quote mining" is used quite a bit in their little videos - which is misrepresenting what someone said by taking a line of context to try to make it look like this person disagrees with evolution when in fact they maybe only challenging one specific idea or setting up an arguement in support of evolution... obvioulsy this is complete dishonesty and they know what they are saying is wrong, but they don't care
science, evidence and the physical world is for us unsaved heathens
BTW: most of the new stuff written by the fundies right now are not a total attack on biology but an attack on astronomy... I suspect physics will be next
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 30, 2008, 03:27:12 PM
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 28, 2008, 03:34:50 AM
many of them describe evolution as if species can cross over into different linages, and use that idea as proof against evolution ... ie and dog/penquin
and i suspect many of them know thats misrepresenting the theory and i really believe many of them know they are wrong
and you know what I dont think they care
when you have so much of your emotions and life invested in an abstraction truth and rational doesn't even factor into the equation
Oh no, I have to disagree... having once been a Fundie. I was a good student in school, I got good grades in Science, but I was sure that Evolution was a crock of shit. I absolutely thought that "Missing Link" was a valid argument and that there was no real evidence of one animal turning into another. Of course, I also believed that Carbon Dating was a fraud and that pillow lava had been found on Mt. Ararat proving that it was once covered in water.
Oh and I absolutely believed that there was secular evidence for Jesus.
i can't believe you'd get very far with science (why the uppercase, btw?) with a world view like that.
Quote from: triple zero on June 30, 2008, 09:19:06 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 30, 2008, 03:27:12 PM
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 28, 2008, 03:34:50 AM
many of them describe evolution as if species can cross over into different linages, and use that idea as proof against evolution ... ie and dog/penquin
and i suspect many of them know thats misrepresenting the theory and i really believe many of them know they are wrong
and you know what I dont think they care
when you have so much of your emotions and life invested in an abstraction truth and rational doesn't even factor into the equation
Oh no, I have to disagree... having once been a Fundie. I was a good student in school, I got good grades in Science, but I was sure that Evolution was a crock of shit. I absolutely thought that "Missing Link" was a valid argument and that there was no real evidence of one animal turning into another. Of course, I also believed that Carbon Dating was a fraud and that pillow lava had been found on Mt. Ararat proving that it was once covered in water.
Oh and I absolutely believed that there was secular evidence for Jesus.
i can't believe you'd get very far with science (why the uppercase, btw?) with a world view like that.
that was Science as in Science the name of the class you take in school.
Acutally, my brain worked great for most aspects of the class material, I could grok cellular structure, atomic structure, geology, biology everything except for the "lightning hit the ocean and BAM there was a protein+1,000,000,000... = Humans (obvious short silly description is obvious and silly). JW's consider themselves quite rational as compared to "Christendom". For example, they think that God made the world in Seven Days... but that "days" is just a reference to some period of time (like "Back in my grandfather's day"). So they accept that the universe may be billions of years old. They even accept that a few core species could be the progenitors of the modern day species. They don't accept that one species could turn into another, or that humans have been around for more than 6 or 7 thousand years.
Beyond that, they buy into most scientific thought... though occasionally they get pissy about some things. My Dad got extremely upset when I talked about black holes being dead stars, since according to the Bible, GOd knows every star by name, they must OBVIOUSLY never die.
I thought that was a rather silly line of reasoning, even at the time. I figured I had a name, but that didn't make me immortal.
hm, okay i understand. a very good friend of mine is also JW, and when i asked him, he kinda told the same story. but it was late and, i think he changed the subject :) but it doesnt really matter
UPDATE: Andy Schlafly is now trying to find a way to sue Lenski into giving him all of the data even though Lenski said that he would gladly give the data to a qualified biologist.
http://acandidworld.wordpress.com/2008/07/03/lenski-redux-schlafly-will-sue/
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 30, 2008, 09:41:18 PM
Quote from: triple zero on June 30, 2008, 09:19:06 PM
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 30, 2008, 03:27:12 PM
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 28, 2008, 03:34:50 AM
many of them describe evolution as if species can cross over into different linages, and use that idea as proof against evolution ... ie and dog/penquin
and i suspect many of them know thats misrepresenting the theory and i really believe many of them know they are wrong
and you know what I dont think they care
when you have so much of your emotions and life invested in an abstraction truth and rational doesn't even factor into the equation
Oh no, I have to disagree... having once been a Fundie. I was a good student in school, I got good grades in Science, but I was sure that Evolution was a crock of shit. I absolutely thought that "Missing Link" was a valid argument and that there was no real evidence of one animal turning into another. Of course, I also believed that Carbon Dating was a fraud and that pillow lava had been found on Mt. Ararat proving that it was once covered in water.
Oh and I absolutely believed that there was secular evidence for Jesus.
i can't believe you'd get very far with science (why the uppercase, btw?) with a world view like that.
that was Science as in Science the name of the class you take in school.
Acutally, my brain worked great for most aspects of the class material, I could grok cellular structure, atomic structure, geology, biology everything except for the "lightning hit the ocean and BAM there was a protein+1,000,000,000... = Humans (obvious short silly description is obvious and silly). JW's consider themselves quite rational as compared to "Christendom". For example, they think that God made the world in Seven Days... but that "days" is just a reference to some period of time (like "Back in my grandfather's day"). So they accept that the universe may be billions of years old. They even accept that a few core species could be the progenitors of the modern day species. They don't accept that one species could turn into another, or that humans have been around for more than 6 or 7 thousand years.
Beyond that, they buy into most scientific thought... though occasionally they get pissy about some things. My Dad got extremely upset when I talked about black holes being dead stars, since according to the Bible, GOd knows every star by name, they must OBVIOUSLY never die.
I thought that was a rather silly line of reasoning, even at the time. I figured I had a name, but that didn't make me immortal.
I've spent waaaayyy too much time in Evolution/Creation forums over the last couple of years and I can confirm that there will always be a certain percentage of True Believers who would not change their mind if God came down and told them to their face that "Yes, the Big Bang and all of Evolution are (for the most part) true." There is no amount of evidence in the world that would convince them that they are wrong because it would completely destroy their psyche. They end up using every defense mechanism known to man to get out of admitting defeat.
There is an interesting meme about it called "Morton's Demon":
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/postmonth/feb02.html
"When I was a YEC, I had a demon that did similar things for me that Maxwell's demon did for thermodynamics. Morton's demon was a demon who sat at the gate of my sensory input apparatus and if and when he saw supportive evidence coming in, he opened the gate. But if he saw contradictory data coming in, he closed the gate. In this way, the demon allowed me to believe that I was right and to avoid any nasty contradictory data. Fortunately, I eventually realized that the demon was there and began to open the gate when he wasn't looking.
Morton's demon makes it possible for a person to have his own set of private facts which others are not privy to, allowing the YEC to construct a theory which is perfectly supported by the facts which the demon lets through the gate. And since these are the only facts known to the victim, he feels in his heart that he has explained everything. Indeed, the demon makes people feel morally superior and more knowledgeable than others."
Also known as the Law of Fives and confirmation bias.
Quote from: Ratatosk on June 30, 2008, 03:27:12 PM
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on June 28, 2008, 03:34:50 AM
many of them describe evolution as if species can cross over into different linages, and use that idea as proof against evolution ... ie and dog/penquin
and i suspect many of them know thats misrepresenting the theory and i really believe many of them know they are wrong
and you know what I dont think they care
when you have so much of your emotions and life invested in an abstraction truth and rational doesn't even factor into the equation
Oh no, I have to disagree... having once been a Fundie. I was a good student in school, I got good grades in Science, but I was sure that Evolution was a crock of shit. I absolutely thought that "Missing Link" was a valid argument and that there was no real evidence of one animal turning into another. Of course, I also believed that Carbon Dating was a fraud and that pillow lava had been found on Mt. Ararat proving that it was once covered in water.
Oh and I absolutely believed that there was secular evidence for Jesus.
The Reality Tunnel I lived in saw plenty of evidence to support these positions and no evidence to support the reverse. At this point, I've decided that evolution seems likely to be a key mechanism, but I wouldn't be surprised to learn 100 years from now that we're missing some huge hunks of what really happened (panspermia, bdelloid rotifers carrying DNA from one entity to another playing Lincoln Logs with DNA, accidental trash dump from a passing space ship...) but that, I think, is because I fully expect to get another major surprise like I got when I suddenly stumbled on the supporting evidence for evolution.
In my experience, most fundies aren't fooling themselves... they simply have a very restrictive reality tunnel.
I'm with you on this one.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070210170623.htm (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070210170623.htm) Possible explanation of the missing "missing link."
I don't know exactly what happened, or why, but once upon a time very recently I was absolutely convinced that life on earth was the result of extraterrestrial interference.
Maybe that was just one of my weird dreams, though.
Quote from: Nigel on July 06, 2008, 02:15:25 PM
I don't know exactly what happened, or why, but once upon a time very recently I was absolutely convinced that life on earth was the result of extraterrestrial interference.
Maybe that was just one of my weird dreams, though.
Raelians/David Icke/Zacariah Sitchin also believe this theory.
It usually also involves cloning, Sumerian gods, bug-eyed aliens with anal probes and Reptilians.
Quote from: Cain on July 06, 2008, 02:18:30 PM
Quote from: Nigel on July 06, 2008, 02:15:25 PM
I don't know exactly what happened, or why, but once upon a time very recently I was absolutely convinced that life on earth was the result of extraterrestrial interference.
Maybe that was just one of my weird dreams, though.
Raelians/David Icke/Zacariah Sitchin also believe this theory.
It usually also involves cloning, Sumerian gods, bug-eyed aliens with anal probes and Reptilians.
They're close. But it's actually genetic engineering, the gods are bug-eyed, and the Reptilians are anally probing the aliens.
Quote from: Nigel on July 06, 2008, 02:15:25 PM
I don't know exactly what happened, or why, but once upon a time very recently I was absolutely convinced that life on earth was the result of extraterrestrial interference.
Maybe that was just one of my weird dreams, though.
You might still be right. Nobody knows for sure.
Quote from: BootyBay on July 08, 2008, 05:07:40 AM
Quote from: Nigel on July 06, 2008, 02:15:25 PM
I don't know exactly what happened, or why, but once upon a time very recently I was absolutely convinced that life on earth was the result of extraterrestrial interference.
Maybe that was just one of my weird dreams, though.
You might still be right. Nobody knows for sure.
personally I would see the likelihood of that would be very, very, very low (though just for obvious practicality reasons - and there is no evidence of it and how would actually study that at this time) It's just not a practicle hypothesis at this time, and a little far fetched (though I would admit not 100 percent impossible)
now the idea that microbes could have first evolved on Mars then broke off to earth, now that makes a lot of sense.. since Mars was open to habitation earlier then the earth
and its more then possible that life is just easier to produce then we think.. just the right conditions and a small jolt
the problem lies that the right conditions, though they may not be very rare in the universe, the distances makes the opportunity to study it is quite difficult... though some answers may come from more core samples from Mars or if something really exiting happens with a probe their planing to send to Europa, though that is suppose to get off the ground in 2011 i heard they still having trouble with contamination concerns, and NASA made a lot of noise about it a few years ago then kind of stoped as of lately, which tells me at least there's something stalling the project
Hell, Isa, that makes alot of sense. Imagination if, when those chunks of iron fell in those comets all those years ago, there were microbes and bacteria latched inside crevices where they were protected from the heat? Most of them fell- you guessed it- just before the Iron Age, but there could've been precursors that fell shortly before human creation.
To me, it seems ridiculous to think God made the Earth in a few days. I just think the scribes were dullwitted enough to be like, "What the hell is an aeon?! That's no amount of time I ever heard of... seven aeons... well, he's God, so he could do it in seven days if he wanted to. Hey, yeah! That works! Let's write that down..."
There's so many cracks in the Bible that I no longer even call myself Christian anymore- anyone who trusts a book that, for two hundred years, was solely able to be read by corrupt individuals and leaders who'd only benefit from having their citizens kept ignorant... is just foolish. It's like Kevin Smith hypothesized in that comedy, Dogma: Who knows what all's been altered and changed in it throughout the years? I still believe in God, but I believe he used Evolution as the tool to develop and alter life to the degrees necessary to let us survive.
Quote from: Nigel on July 06, 2008, 02:15:25 PM
I don't know exactly what happened, or why, but once upon a time very recently I was absolutely convinced that life on earth was the result of extraterrestrial interference.
Maybe that was just one of my weird dreams, though.
Please to be reading "Venus on the Half Shell" it will answer all of your questions. :)
Since this was bumped, I have found a couple of very cool videos regarding life's origins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhWds7djuWo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhWds7djuWo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6QYDdgP9eg)
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on July 08, 2008, 05:44:51 AM
Quote from: BootyBay on July 08, 2008, 05:07:40 AM
Quote from: Nigel on July 06, 2008, 02:15:25 PM
I don't know exactly what happened, or why, but once upon a time very recently I was absolutely convinced that life on earth was the result of extraterrestrial interference.
Maybe that was just one of my weird dreams, though.
You might still be right. Nobody knows for sure.
personally I would see the likelihood of that would be very, very, very low (though just for obvious practicality reasons - and there is no evidence of it and how would actually study that at this time) It's just not a practicle hypothesis at this time, and a little far fetched (though I would admit not 100 percent impossible)
now the idea that microbes could have first evolved on Mars then broke off to earth, now that makes a lot of sense.. since Mars was open to habitation earlier then the earth
and its more then possible that life is just easier to produce then we think.. just the right conditions and a small jolt
the problem lies that the right conditions, though they may not be very rare in the universe, the distances makes the opportunity to study it is quite difficult... though some answers may come from more core samples from Mars or if something really exiting happens with a probe their planing to send to Europa, though that is suppose to get off the ground in 2011 i heard they still having trouble with contamination concerns, and NASA made a lot of noise about it a few years ago then kind of stoped as of lately, which tells me at least there's something stalling the project
The thing about the "extraterrestrial seeds" problem is that it doesn't actually answer the question of "Why Did Life"; it just moves it to another starting point. It's not any easier to explain why life evolved on Planet Whatserface than it is to explain why it evolved on Earth, and in the end we'd probably come up with the same reasons anyway. :monkeydance:
--Calendula,
really needs to start reading about biology again!
Quote from: Calendula! on July 30, 2008, 06:58:32 PM
Quote from: Thurnez Isa on July 08, 2008, 05:44:51 AM
Quote from: BootyBay on July 08, 2008, 05:07:40 AM
Quote from: Nigel on July 06, 2008, 02:15:25 PM
I don't know exactly what happened, or why, but once upon a time very recently I was absolutely convinced that life on earth was the result of extraterrestrial interference.
Maybe that was just one of my weird dreams, though.
You might still be right. Nobody knows for sure.
personally I would see the likelihood of that would be very, very, very low (though just for obvious practicality reasons - and there is no evidence of it and how would actually study that at this time) It's just not a practicle hypothesis at this time, and a little far fetched (though I would admit not 100 percent impossible)
now the idea that microbes could have first evolved on Mars then broke off to earth, now that makes a lot of sense.. since Mars was open to habitation earlier then the earth
and its more then possible that life is just easier to produce then we think.. just the right conditions and a small jolt
the problem lies that the right conditions, though they may not be very rare in the universe, the distances makes the opportunity to study it is quite difficult... though some answers may come from more core samples from Mars or if something really exiting happens with a probe their planing to send to Europa, though that is suppose to get off the ground in 2011 i heard they still having trouble with contamination concerns, and NASA made a lot of noise about it a few years ago then kind of stoped as of lately, which tells me at least there's something stalling the project
The thing about the "extraterrestrial seeds" problem is that it doesn't actually answer the question of "Why Did Life"; it just moves it to another starting point. It's not any easier to explain why life evolved on Planet Whatserface than it is to explain why it evolved on Earth, and in the end we'd probably come up with the same reasons anyway. :monkeydance:
--Calendula,
really needs to start reading about biology again!
Venus On The Half Shell, it explains it quite clearly in the end.
Quote from: Ratatosk on July 30, 2008, 07:05:14 PM
Venus On The Half Shell, it explains it quite clearly in the end.
Thanks for the rec, then-- will keep an eye out for it. : )
The experiment mentioned in the OP is indeed a very interesting one with amazing results, E. coli mutating the ability to metabolize citrate. To see evolution in bacteria is incredibly easy compaired to other organisms due to their high reproductivity, short generation time, horizontal gene transfer and fission reproduction (which is more or less cloning). Whereas these could evolve such a mechanism in short time, vertebrates may take millions of years.
Other items mentioned here (the peppered moth experiment, "missing links") are common strawmen for YECs and IDCs. A reminder that evolutionary biology is a separate study than biogenesis, which is the direction this thread seems to be going. Confusing the two is also a YEC/IDC tactic.
I had something else I wanted to say but I forgot for some reason.
Quote from: Kai on July 30, 2008, 10:19:20 PM
Other items mentioned here (the peppered moth experiment, "missing links") are common strawmen for YECs and IDCs. A reminder that evolutionary biology is a separate study than biogenesis, which is the direction this thread seems to be going. Confusing the two is also a YEC/IDC tactic.
- biogenesis is the creation of life out of an abiotic environment.
- evolution takes place on abiotic molecules.
[The cornerstone of evolution is selection which also takes place on non living substances, example: ozone is selected against stronger then water. This simple form of selection is solely dependent on the stability of the molecule.
example of more advanced abiotic selection: If a certain molecule is capable of changing other molecules into copies of itself(which some molecules have), then it has an evolutionary advantage.]
conclusion: the theory of evolution is crucial to the study of biogenesis.
Apparantly its supposed to be abiogenesis instead of biogenesis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Quote from: Regret on August 14, 2008, 03:08:34 PM
Quote from: Kai on July 30, 2008, 10:19:20 PM
Other items mentioned here (the peppered moth experiment, "missing links") are common strawmen for YECs and IDCs. A reminder that evolutionary biology is a separate study than biogenesis, which is the direction this thread seems to be going. Confusing the two is also a YEC/IDC tactic.
- biogenesis is the creation of life out of an abiotic environment.
- evolution takes place on abiotic molecules.
[The cornerstone of evolution is selection which also takes place on non living substances, example: ozone is selected against stronger then water. This simple form of selection is solely dependent on the stability of the molecule.
example of more advanced abiotic selection: If a certain molecule is capable of changing other molecules into copies of itself(which some molecules have), then it has an evolutionary advantage.]
conclusion: the theory of evolution is crucial to the study of biogenesis.
Apparantly its supposed to be abiogenesis instead of biogenesis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenesis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis
Evolutionary biologists and those scientists that work with the subject of abiogenesis (or biogenesis, its the same field of study, and the two terms seem to be interchangable) work on completly different subject matter. Evolutionary theory does not necessitate the knowlege of where and how life began, and the chemistry of abiogenisis and gene transfer among early organisms may not follow evolutionary theory. Abiogenesis may require knowlege of evolutionary theory but evolutionary theory does not require understanding of abiogenesis, where and how life began. This is something that YECs/IDCs like to convolute because they believe that evolutionary theory is based in things like the Miller experiment, which it isn't. That was my point. You are splitting hairs.
Kai,
Has a BS in Biology, getting an MS in Entomology, D/N/T
PS: Besides, biological evolution takes place in populations of organisms, not a soup of nucleic acids. Please to not be confusing biology with organic chemistry. Thank you.
Oh, and also thank you
so much for trying to use "selection". That made my day, because now I can bitch about how people do not understand the theory of natural selection and try to pass of their colloquialisms as biological science.
CHEMICAL SELECTION =/= NATURAL SELECTION
and for GODS SAKE, "survival of the fittest" does NOT mean survival of the "strongest" or "most stable". What it means is the ability of an organism to have ofspring that can reproduce. Fit organisms are those that produce offspring which reproduce themselves. It has nothing to do with how strong or stable (whatever you might mean by that in this context is), but how good they are at spewing out children. if you live for 2 days, fuck, have little clones of yourself, and die, you are by definition more evolutionarily fit than someone who lives for over 100 years and never has kids.
By this definition, I would guess that you are not fit. Nature selected against YUO.
The report hints that this new bacteria may actually be a new species, or at least be moving very strongly in that direction. That seems very significant.
The scientific concept of species has a great deal of grey area. As I understand it, generally the concept is that members of different but closely related species may be able to produce offspring, but the offspring will be infertile. Problem is, that doesn't work, even in some "higher" species. Parrots, for example, freely mate and produce fertile offspring not only outside their own species, but even outside their own genus.
Evolution is fundamental to a number of sciences, certainly including medicine. I suppose if you don't believe in evolution, you shouldn't take modern-day antibiotics, because those are based on the idea that the old drugs don't work very well because the bacteria have evolved. I think Gary Trudeau did a Doonesbury strip on that.
I didn't clarify in the above that, when I talked about species reproducing, I was referring to sexual reproduction. I know many species reproduce asexually but, as likely won't be surprising, I find asexual reproduction boring. It doesn't fit in my reality tunnel, so therefore I pretend it doesn't exist.
Quote from: Reverend Uncle BadTouch on August 14, 2008, 09:03:13 PM
The report hints that this new bacteria may actually be a new species, or at least be moving very strongly in that direction. That seems very significant.
The scientific concept of species has a great deal of grey area. As I understand it, generally the concept is that members of different but closely related species may be able to produce offspring, but the offspring will be infertile. Problem is, that doesn't work, even in some "higher" species. Parrots, for example, freely mate and produce fertile offspring not only outside their own species, but even outside their own genus.
Evolution is fundamental to a number of sciences, certainly including medicine. I suppose if you don't believe in evolution, you shouldn't take modern-day antibiotics, because those are based on the idea that the old drugs don't work very well because the bacteria have evolved. I think Gary Trudeau did a Doonesbury strip on that.
The definition of species is not really grey. It only seems grey if you are working from a "can they mate and produce fertile ofspring" definition. The formal definition includes several factors that can provide for speciation:
1. inability to produce fertile ofspring together
2. Separation due to ecological niche (food, space, time, etc partitioning)
3. Separation by environmental factors (such as a desert, an ocean, or other large scale exclutionary device, or by time)
It is not always as simple as "can they make babies?"
Addenum: classification outside the species level is made by inference. It is often wrong if not backed up by genetic comparisons, and is simply a way to show genetic and evolutionary relationships between species, usually by showing groups are monophyletic, having a "single" common ansestor. Good example from my own field, the Genus Ceratopsyche, family Hydropsychidae was poorly separated from the Genus Hydropsyche in the 20th century. Recently, genetic evidence has shown that these two genera are polyphyletic, meaning they stem from several ansestral trees. Taken as a whole, however, they are monophyletic, and so Ceratopsyche will soon be synonymous with Hydropsyche. Monophylogeny from genetic evidence is the /best/ way for establishing evolutionary relationships and classification. Unfortunatly, there is /so much/ work that needs to be done, and its all very complex stuff. In entomology you get a new systematic development that screws with the higher taxonomy of an order every year or so. Talk about trying to keep up with that! New orders splitting off, families being combined from other families, new subfamilies splitting off, genera becoming synonymous and splitting, species being found to be species groups, which turns into more species to formally describe and name.
Lots and lots of work being done.
Now, please go away.
Quote from: Reverend Uncle BadTouch on August 14, 2008, 09:20:55 PM
I didn't clarify in the above that, when I talked about species reproducing, I was referring to sexual reproduction. I know many species reproduce asexually but, as likely won't be surprising, I find asexual reproduction boring. It doesn't fit in my reality tunnel, so therefore I pretend it doesn't exist.
When you have asexual reproduction, evolutionary change occurs differently, through either:
1: beneficial mutations
or
2: horizontal gene transfer or some other similar process.
Now, please please go away.
Quote from: Kai on August 14, 2008, 08:30:05 PM
Evolutionary biologists and those scientists that work with the subject of abiogenesis (or biogenesis, its the same field of study, and the two terms seem to be interchangable) work on completly different subject matter. Evolutionary theory does not necessitate the knowlege of where and how life began, and the chemistry of abiogenisis and gene transfer among early organisms may not follow evolutionary theory. Abiogenesis may require knowlege of evolutionary theory but evolutionary theory does not require understanding of abiogenesis, where and how life began. This is something that YECs/IDCs like to convolute because they believe that evolutionary theory is based in things like the Miller experiment, which it isn't. That was my point. You are splitting hairs.
Kai,
Has a BS in Biology, getting an MS in Entomology, D/N/T
PS: Besides, biological evolution takes place in populations of organisms, not a soup of nucleic acids. Please to not be confusing biology with organic chemistry. Thank you.
Oh, and also thank you so much for trying to use "selection". That made my day, because now I can bitch about how people do not understand the theory of natural selection and try to pass of their colloquialisms as biological science.
CHEMICAL SELECTION =/= NATURAL SELECTION
and for GODS SAKE, "survival of the fittest" does NOT mean survival of the "strongest" or "most stable". What it means is the ability of an organism to have ofspring that can reproduce. Fit organisms are those that produce offspring which reproduce themselves. It has nothing to do with how strong or stable (whatever you might mean by that in this context is), but how good they are at spewing out children. if you live for 2 days, fuck, have little clones of yourself, and die, you are by definition more evolutionarily fit than someone who lives for over 100 years and never has kids.
By this definition, I would guess that you are not fit. Nature selected against YUO.
:D yes i was splitting hairs, i'm sorry if it seemed an attack, it was only meant as clarification.
My point was that the forces that drive evolution are no different from those that drive changes in abiotic systems,
can you please explain to me how selection on chemicals is different from selection on organisms(as carriers of genes)? Its both just probabilities right? the one with the highest probability to continue existing is the fittest and that is true for alleles, molecules, memes and brands of beer.
by chemically most stable i mean most likely to stay in its current form, He
(g) is more stable that H
2(g) in an oxygenated environment because H
2(g) has an tendency to react with oxygen to create water and helium can't even react with oxygen (being a noble gas) thereby the fraction hydrogen-gas wil decrease in oxygenated enviroments. This is no different from the reduction in allele frequency you find in a population of moths.
what do you think of my 'probabilty of continued existence' view on natural selection?
PS. the term natural selection pisses me off, as if unnatural selection can't influence evolution.
Quote from: Regret on August 14, 2008, 09:55:57 PM
Quote from: Kai on August 14, 2008, 08:30:05 PM
Evolutionary biologists and those scientists that work with the subject of abiogenesis (or biogenesis, its the same field of study, and the two terms seem to be interchangable) work on completly different subject matter. Evolutionary theory does not necessitate the knowlege of where and how life began, and the chemistry of abiogenisis and gene transfer among early organisms may not follow evolutionary theory. Abiogenesis may require knowlege of evolutionary theory but evolutionary theory does not require understanding of abiogenesis, where and how life began. This is something that YECs/IDCs like to convolute because they believe that evolutionary theory is based in things like the Miller experiment, which it isn't. That was my point. You are splitting hairs.
Kai,
Has a BS in Biology, getting an MS in Entomology, D/N/T
PS: Besides, biological evolution takes place in populations of organisms, not a soup of nucleic acids. Please to not be confusing biology with organic chemistry. Thank you.
Oh, and also thank you so much for trying to use "selection". That made my day, because now I can bitch about how people do not understand the theory of natural selection and try to pass of their colloquialisms as biological science.
CHEMICAL SELECTION =/= NATURAL SELECTION
and for GODS SAKE, "survival of the fittest" does NOT mean survival of the "strongest" or "most stable". What it means is the ability of an organism to have ofspring that can reproduce. Fit organisms are those that produce offspring which reproduce themselves. It has nothing to do with how strong or stable (whatever you might mean by that in this context is), but how good they are at spewing out children. if you live for 2 days, fuck, have little clones of yourself, and die, you are by definition more evolutionarily fit than someone who lives for over 100 years and never has kids.
By this definition, I would guess that you are not fit. Nature selected against YUO.
:D yes i was splitting hairs, i'm sorry if it seemed an attack, it was only meant as clarification.
My point was that the forces that drive evolution are no different from those that drive changes in abiotic systems,
can you please explain to me how selection on chemicals is different from selection on organisms(as carriers of genes)? Its both just probabilities right? the one with the highest probability to continue existing is the fittest and that is true for alleles, molecules, memes and brands of beer.
by chemically most stable i mean most likely to stay in its current form, He(g) is more stable that H2(g) in an oxygenated environment because H2(g) has an tendency to react with oxygen to create water and helium can't even react with oxygen (being a noble gas) thereby the fraction hydrogen-gas wil decrease in oxygenated enviroments. This is no different from the reduction in allele frequency you find in a population of moths.
what do you think of my 'probabilty of continued existence' view on natural selection?
PS. the term natural selection pisses me off, as if unnatural selection can't influence evolution.
Holy shit, YES, we have a live one here and they can take my snark! :D
Okay, to your first point, yes, they are different. Why? Because in sexual selection (a subset of natural selection), mate selection is not random. Natural Selection is not a random process. Genetic Drift, however, IS a random process. The greatest controversy in evolutionary biology is which of those two are more important? Most biologists agree that both natural selection and genetic drift occur in some amount, but very few agree as to what proportion each occur. Are there situations where one is irrelevant?
Natural selection, at least when we speak of it including sexual selection, does not deal with probabilities, as I said. Darwins thesis was that individuals with favorable traits are more likely to reproduce because they are A. more fit with the environment (environmental selection) and b. more attractive to a mate (sexual selection), and that these traits are passed on to the offspring and become a larger precentage of the population. This is counting, however, only for traits that are visible and would be considered detrimental or favorable. The other traits, hidden or neutral, will change according to probability. This change is called genetic drift. Like I said above, biologists argue alot about which one is more important in evolutionary change.
Now, compairing that to chemicals is like compairing apples and oranges. The biological process is a combination of random and deterministic elements with billions of variables. The chemical process is relatively simple. You can't compare the two because they are completly dissimilar. The reduction in allele frequency (I'm guessing you are reffering to peppered moth populations) occured because of a thousand different variables coming together at once, habitat selection for the moth, prey selection and availability for the birds, climate and human population effects. Its such a mixture of complex random and deterministic events that comparing it to chemical processes is oversimplfying to the point where it bears no resemblance to the truth. Its too unpredictable.
When you talk about probability of continued existance, I believe you are talking about variables, whereas with evolutionary biology you are talking about alleles within a genepool. Mixed metaphors, different processes, too many variables.
Also, unnatural selection is a bad misspelling, a satyrical meme, and has nothing to do with the scientific theory of natural selection.
Quote from: Kai on August 14, 2008, 10:55:49 PM
Holy shit, YES, we have a live one here and they can take my snark! :D
Okay, to your first point, yes, they are different. Why? Because in sexual selection (a subset of natural selection), mate selection is not random. Natural Selection is not a random process. Genetic Drift, however, IS a random process. The greatest controversy in evolutionary biology is which of those two are more important? Most biologists agree that both natural selection and genetic drift occur in some amount, but very few agree as to what proportion each occur. Are there situations where one is irrelevant?
Natural selection, at least when we speak of it including sexual selection, does not deal with probabilities, as I said. Darwins thesis was that individuals with favorable traits are more likely to reproduce because they are A. more fit with the environment (environmental selection) and b. more attractive to a mate (sexual selection), and that these traits are passed on to the offspring and become a larger precentage of the population. This is counting, however, only for traits that are visible and would be considered detrimental or favorable. The other traits, hidden or neutral, will change according to probability. This change is called genetic drift. Like I said above, biologists argue alot about which one is more important in evolutionary change.
Now, compairing that to chemicals is like compairing apples and oranges. The biological process is a combination of random and deterministic elements with billions of variables. The chemical process is relatively simple. You can't compare the two because they are completly dissimilar. The reduction in allele frequency (I'm guessing you are reffering to peppered moth populations) occured because of a thousand different variables coming together at once, habitat selection for the moth, prey selection and availability for the birds, climate and human population effects. Its such a mixture of complex random and deterministic events that comparing it to chemical processes is oversimplfying to the point where it bears no resemblance to the truth. Its too unpredictable.
When you talk about probability of continued existance, I believe you are talking about variables, whereas with evolutionary biology you are talking about alleles within a genepool. Mixed metaphors, different processes, too many variables.
Also, unnatural selection is a bad misspelling, a satyrical meme, and has nothing to do with the scientific theory of natural selection.
random? do you think that molecular stability is random? which is easier to degrade starch or ethanol and why? these processes are not even nearly random, it strongly depends on their surroundings just as mate selection. it depends partly on properties of the molecule itself (for example the strength and number of its covalent bonds) and partly on properties of its surroundings/environment (the presence of enzymes, temperature, pH)
Is 'more likely' not equal to increased probability?
as to chemical processes being dissimilar, this is of course true but if you think of the effects of the environment on the subject(organism or otherwise) as a black box then the output of said black box is the probability of continued existence(regardless of the processes inside the black box or what it is acting on). Now when i talk about continued existence i do not mean physical existence but the continued existence of this particular bit of information wether this information is encoded in DNA or in the presence of the actual subject does not matter. it does not matter if your genes survive to 2050 inside your body or inside the bodies of your onyl surviving offspring, as long as they can still interact with the other genes in the genepool.
Don't forget that selection takes places at the genetic level and that genes are molecules.
PS i'm really enjoying this :D
PPS i'm not attacking the theory of natural selection, i just do not understand why it is stil called natural selection when natural implies that it is not influenced by human industry while the theory has the same predicting power when the selection is not natural.
hmmm just had a thought: maybe 'natural' was simply used to set it apart from supernatural i.e. divine, or just used as we use the world 'real' in this day and age.
PPPS my reasoning skills are deteriorating under the influence of beer and exhaustion so i am going to sleep, goodnight Kai.
Kai, I knew there was a reason I liked you.
Quote from: Regret on August 14, 2008, 11:40:14 PM
Quote from: Kai on August 14, 2008, 10:55:49 PM
Holy shit, YES, we have a live one here and they can take my snark! :D
Okay, to your first point, yes, they are different. Why? Because in sexual selection (a subset of natural selection), mate selection is not random. Natural Selection is not a random process. Genetic Drift, however, IS a random process. The greatest controversy in evolutionary biology is which of those two are more important? Most biologists agree that both natural selection and genetic drift occur in some amount, but very few agree as to what proportion each occur. Are there situations where one is irrelevant?
Natural selection, at least when we speak of it including sexual selection, does not deal with probabilities, as I said. Darwins thesis was that individuals with favorable traits are more likely to reproduce because they are A. more fit with the environment (environmental selection) and b. more attractive to a mate (sexual selection), and that these traits are passed on to the offspring and become a larger precentage of the population. This is counting, however, only for traits that are visible and would be considered detrimental or favorable. The other traits, hidden or neutral, will change according to probability. This change is called genetic drift. Like I said above, biologists argue alot about which one is more important in evolutionary change.
Now, compairing that to chemicals is like compairing apples and oranges. The biological process is a combination of random and deterministic elements with billions of variables. The chemical process is relatively simple. You can't compare the two because they are completly dissimilar. The reduction in allele frequency (I'm guessing you are reffering to peppered moth populations) occured because of a thousand different variables coming together at once, habitat selection for the moth, prey selection and availability for the birds, climate and human population effects. Its such a mixture of complex random and deterministic events that comparing it to chemical processes is oversimplfying to the point where it bears no resemblance to the truth. Its too unpredictable.
When you talk about probability of continued existance, I believe you are talking about variables, whereas with evolutionary biology you are talking about alleles within a genepool. Mixed metaphors, different processes, too many variables.
Also, unnatural selection is a bad misspelling, a satyrical meme, and has nothing to do with the scientific theory of natural selection.
random? do you think that molecular stability is random? which is easier to degrade starch or ethanol and why? these processes are not even nearly random, it strongly depends on their surroundings just as mate selection. it depends partly on properties of the molecule itself (for example the strength and number of its covalent bonds) and partly on properties of its surroundings/environment (the presence of enzymes, temperature, pH)
Is 'more likely' not equal to increased probability?
as to chemical processes being dissimilar, this is of course true but if you think of the effects of the environment on the subject(organism or otherwise) as a black box then the output of said black box is the probability of continued existence(regardless of the processes inside the black box or what it is acting on). Now when i talk about continued existence i do not mean physical existence but the continued existence of this particular bit of information wether this information is encoded in DNA or in the presence of the actual subject does not matter. it does not matter if your genes survive to 2050 inside your body or inside the bodies of your onyl surviving offspring, as long as they can still interact with the other genes in the genepool.
Don't forget that selection takes places at the genetic level and that genes are molecules.
PS i'm really enjoying this :D
PPS i'm not attacking the theory of natural selection, i just do not understand why it is stil called natural selection when natural implies that it is not influenced by human industry while the theory has the same predicting power when the selection is not natural.
hmmm just had a thought: maybe 'natural' was simply used to set it apart from supernatural i.e. divine, or just used as we use the world 'real' in this day and age.
PPPS my reasoning skills are deteriorating under the influence of beer and exhaustion so i am going to sleep, goodnight Kai.
I'm sorry but, while I can see some similarities between chemical "selection" and natural evolutionary processes, I still don't believe they make a good comparison. I'm glad you are enjoying this; at the moment I am exausted from a 1000 mile/24 hour drive which I haven't slept yet from. Natural Selection is called that because that is the name that Charles Darwin gave the process when he outlined the main details more than 100 years ago. Natural selection was most likely used to set the processes outlined apart from a divine order. Christianity was the main force against which Darwin fought to publish and make widely known his findings.
Quote from: Vene on August 15, 2008, 01:33:24 AM
Kai, I knew there was a reason I liked you.
:D
i'm gonna try to oil this discussion a littlebit. cause i think it's possible for it to go into some more useful direction than an authorative knowledge show-off battle :-P
- first, Kai don't diss his misspellings, he's not a native english speaker (i've seen his avatar on the Dutch discordian Hyves group)
- second, Regret, i think Kai is trying to say (and sorry if i get it wrong here, Kai) that natural selection and "chemical selection"/memetic selection/etc, while having a superficial similarity, when you go into detail and actually study why these systems work the way they do, are constructed out of fundamentally different mechanisms and mainly, that it's important to be aware of these differences instead of ignore them or look the other way because it's so easy (and i understand why it's easy, Regret, see the next point :) ) -- cause once you call everything "the same process", you don't get very far in studying its specific workings (remember you're talking to a person who's literally studying "mierenneuken"! :lol:)
- third, Kai, what i think Regret is trying to say (also sorry Regret, i regret if i'd interpret you wrong here) is that on some other fundamental level, natural selection, "chemical selection", memetic selection (i could add more to this list btw) are all examples of a same (very) general process, which should have a kind of name, but i can't think of a better term than "evolution" (strictly in its generic meaning, not the specific biological sense). the terms "complexity" and "emergence" are kind of related, but not really in the chemical sense, at least not that often.
- fourth, to me this seems like a process where complex systems of combinatorial information packets are continously reconstructing themselves, with their continued existence determined in one sense by rules based on the (often physical) carrier of the information, but in another sense can be seen as determined by rules based on the meaning of the information in relation to the system itself. thereby (IMO) creating the meaning--in some sense--from the purely physical properties of the system... maybe call that semiogenesis?
sorry if i might have flown off a tangent.
Quote from: triple zero on August 28, 2008, 01:23:04 PM
i'm gonna try to oil this discussion a littlebit. cause i think it's possible for it to go into some more useful direction than an authorative knowledge show-off battle :-P
- first, Kai don't diss his misspellings, he's not a native english speaker (i've seen his avatar on the Dutch discordian Hyves group)
- second, Regret, i think Kai is trying to say (and sorry if i get it wrong here, Kai) that natural selection and "chemical selection"/memetic selection/etc, while having a superficial similarity, when you go into detail and actually study why these systems work the way they do, are constructed out of fundamentally different mechanisms and mainly, that it's important to be aware of these differences instead of ignore them or look the other way because it's so easy (and i understand why it's easy, Regret, see the next point :) ) -- cause once you call everything "the same process", you don't get very far in studying its specific workings (remember you're talking to a person who's literally studying "mierenneuken"! :lol:)
- third, Kai, what i think Regret is trying to say (also sorry Regret, i regret if i'd interpret you wrong here) is that on some other fundamental level, natural selection, "chemical selection", memetic selection (i could add more to this list btw) are all examples of a same (very) general process, which should have a kind of name, but i can't think of a better term than "evolution" (strictly in its generic meaning, not the specific biological sense). the terms "complexity" and "emergence" are kind of related, but not really in the chemical sense, at least not that often.
- fourth, to me this seems like a process where complex systems of combinatorial information packets are continously reconstructing themselves, with their continued existence determined in one sense by rules based on the (often physical) carrier of the information, but in another sense can be seen as determined by rules based on the meaning of the information in relation to the system itself. thereby (IMO) creating the meaning--in some sense--from the purely physical properties of the system... maybe call that semiogenesis?
sorry if i might have flown off a tangent.
1. Don't know if I was dissing his spelling. Sorry if I was.
2. Correct on that point.
3. See the Six elements of Bootstrapping quality thread for more details.
4. Unfortunatly biology is seldom based around meaning. Its whatever works. The species that are around today are around because they survived billions of years of environmental changes within their lineages as well as random chance events and if something happened tomorrow to wipe them out before they could all reproduce the lineage would simply be gone, a lineage that goes all the way back to the begining, to the hydrothermal vents if you will. You could say that all we have left are the bedraggled remains of what once was, and as amazing as those are, just think about how amazing those in the past were, or how amazing /those in the future/ will be. The unrolling (heh, Darwin really hated that term) continues. How long before the human lineage is wiped out by disease or lack of resources? We'll be just another footnote in the fossil record, a HC layer, like the K-T layer, a line of dust in the rock.
On the other hand, meaning = survival? In other words, the packets of DNA have meaning in their phenotypic form as a mechanism for survival....we would simply call that adaptation in biology. I'm not sure what you are getting at. Semio....some kind of mark, standard, a symbol? The birth of symbols?
Quote from: Calendula! on July 30, 2008, 06:58:32 PM
The thing about the "extraterrestrial seeds" problem is that it doesn't actually answer the question of "Why Did Life"; it just moves it to another starting point. It's not any easier to explain why life evolved on Planet Whatserface than it is to explain why it evolved on Earth, and in the end we'd probably come up with the same reasons anyway. :monkeydance:
--Calendula,
really needs to start reading about biology again!
Conciousness is an odd thing. Sure, it centers around our brains, but there have been normally functioning people discovered to have essentially no brains at all. So, if the brain isn't it, then what is? Is our brain a receptor for something else? I've pondered if life came into being because of cross dimensional leaks similar to the theory of weak gravity.
:facepalm:
Quote from: lemurdue on August 29, 2008, 04:09:51 AM
Quote from: Calendula! on July 30, 2008, 06:58:32 PM
The thing about the "extraterrestrial seeds" problem is that it doesn't actually answer the question of "Why Did Life"; it just moves it to another starting point. It's not any easier to explain why life evolved on Planet Whatserface than it is to explain why it evolved on Earth, and in the end we'd probably come up with the same reasons anyway. :monkeydance:
--Calendula,
really needs to start reading about biology again!
Conciousness is an odd thing. Sure, it centers around our brains, but there have been normally functioning people discovered to have essentially no brains at all. So, if the brain isn't it, then what is? Is our brain a receptor for something else? I've pondered if life came into being because of cross dimensional leaks similar to the theory of weak gravity.
O.o
Another thing: I was reading last night and came to the conclusion that selectivism in chemistry and natural selection in biology are not comparable largely because the former can be reduced (reductionism "all arrows point down"), while biology can not, it is an example of emergence.
Quote from: lemurdue on August 29, 2008, 04:09:51 AM
Quote from: Calendula! on July 30, 2008, 06:58:32 PM
The thing about the "extraterrestrial seeds" problem is that it doesn't actually answer the question of "Why Did Life"; it just moves it to another starting point. It's not any easier to explain why life evolved on Planet Whatserface than it is to explain why it evolved on Earth, and in the end we'd probably come up with the same reasons anyway. :monkeydance:
--Calendula,
really needs to start reading about biology again!
Conciousness is an odd thing. Sure, it centers around our brains, but there have been normally functioning people discovered to have essentially no brains at all. So, if the brain isn't it, then what is? Is our brain a receptor for something else? I've pondered if life came into being because of cross dimensional leaks similar to the theory of weak gravity.
Does the 50 post rule apply when the level of bullshit is this high? Creationists make more sense than this guy. Hell, the recent "bigfoot" incident is more believable, even after it was definitely exposed as a costume.
Take it easy. Let's ease him into this.
Quote from: lemurdue on August 29, 2008, 04:09:51 AM
Conciousness is an odd thing. Sure, it centers around our brains, but there have been normally functioning people discovered to have essentially no brains at all. So, if the brain isn't it, then what is? Is our brain a receptor for something else? I've pondered if life came into being because of cross dimensional leaks similar to the theory of weak gravity.
Ok, first, we're gonna have to do a :cn: on the first part.
Second, I suggest you employ Occam's razor more judiciously.
Quote from: LMNO on August 29, 2008, 02:03:41 PM
Take it easy. Let's ease him into this.
Quote from: lemurdue on August 29, 2008, 04:09:51 AM
Consciousness is an odd thing. Sure, it centers around our brains, but there have been normally functioning people discovered to have essentially no brains at all. So, if the brain isn't it, then what is? Is our brain a receptor for something else? I've pondered if life came into being because of cross dimensional leaks similar to the theory of weak gravity.
Ok, first, we're gonna have to do a :cn: on the first part.
Second, I suggest you employ Occam's razor more judiciously.
No, this is the internet so fuck Occam's razor.
Here you go: http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Mysteries-of-the-Mind/Living-without-a-Brain.html (http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Mysteries-of-the-Mind/Living-without-a-Brain.html). If you want longer stuff, it's out there under a lot of the holographic universe stuff.
But anyway, fuck Occam's razor. This is the internet. You can say any sort of shit you want behind the cloak of anonymity.
Quote from: lemurdue on September 08, 2008, 10:04:36 PM
Quote from: LMNO on August 29, 2008, 02:03:41 PM
Take it easy. Let's ease him into this.
Quote from: lemurdue on August 29, 2008, 04:09:51 AM
Consciousness is an odd thing. Sure, it centers around our brains, but there have been normally functioning people discovered to have essentially no brains at all. So, if the brain isn't it, then what is? Is our brain a receptor for something else? I've pondered if life came into being because of cross dimensional leaks similar to the theory of weak gravity.
Ok, first, we're gonna have to do a :cn: on the first part.
Second, I suggest you employ Occam's razor more judiciously.
No, this is the internet so fuck Occam's razor.
Here you go: http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Mysteries-of-the-Mind/Living-without-a-Brain.html (http://www.unexplainedstuff.com/Mysteries-of-the-Mind/Living-without-a-Brain.html). If you want longer stuff, it's out there under a lot of the holographic universe stuff.
But anyway, fuck Occam's razor. This is the internet. You can say any sort of shit you want behind the cloak of anonymity.
Just because you're anonymous, doesn't mean you shouldn't at least make an
attempt to be logical and scientific in a science thread.
I would click that link and read through it, but something tells me it's all going to be bullshit.
Fuck Occam's Razor indeed...
You can find Lorber's work in a variety of places. It's a fact that there are people functioning normally with practically no brain. So yeah, call it illogical all you want, but the universe is consistently an illogical place.
Quote from: lemurdue on September 08, 2008, 10:30:46 PM
You can find Lorber's work in a variety of places. It's a fact that there are people functioning normally with practically no brain. So yeah, call it illogical all you want, but the universe is consistently an illogical place.
No, it's a logical place. It's our minds that are illogical. That's why the higher level science is so counter intuitive.
Land Of Big Science
from Newsweek
The eyes of the world are on Geneva, where scientists are expected to throw the switch this week on what may be the biggest experiment ever conducted. It's certainly the most expensive.
... Probing more deeply than ever before into the stuff of the universe requires some big hardware. It also requires the political will to lavish money on a project that has no predictable practical return, other than prestige and leadership in the branch of science that delivered just about every major technology of the past hundred years.
... The Large Hadron Collider, as the Geneva machine is called, is a symptom of America's decline in particle physics and Europe's rise. Many scientists and educators fear that it also signals a broader decline in scientific leadership on the part of the United States.
http://snipurl.com/3ns2q
Sea Level Rise Won't Be a "Hollywood Cataclysm"
from National Geographic News
Sea levels will rise a bit higher—but not catastrophically high—in the coming century, according to a new study. The oceans will likely rise between 2.5 and 6.5 feet by 2100, researchers say.
This is not as high as the predictions from some scientists, who have warned that sea levels may rise as much as 16 feet by 2100.
Just because the amount of sea-level rise predicted in the new study is "not a Hollywood cataclysm, it doesn't mean it's not important," said study leader Tad Pfeffer of the University of Colorado in Boulder. ... In the new study, Pfeffer and colleagues examined estimates of 16 feet or more of sea level rise, which they thought seemed unrealistic.
http://snipurl.com/3nehb
Assessing the Value of Small Wind Turbines
from the New York Times (Registration Required)
SAN FRANCISCO—With the California blackouts of 2001 still a painful memory, Chris Beaudoin wants to generate some of his own electricity. He marveled the other day at how close he is to that goal, gazing at two new wind turbines atop his garage roof. They will soon be hooked to the power grid.
"I don't care about how much it costs," said Mr. Beaudoin, a flight attendant with United Airlines. That would be $5,000 a turbine, an expense Mr. Beaudoin is unlikely to recoup in electricity savings anytime soon.
No matter. After shoring up the roof and installing the two 300-pound, steel-poled turbines in January, Mr. Beaudoin found himself at the leading edge of a trend in renewable energy.
http://snipurl.com/3mz1n
Scientists Get Death Threats Over Large Hadron Collider
from the Telegraph (UK)
Scientists working on the world's biggest machine are being besieged by phone calls and emails from people who fear the world will end next Wednesday, when the gigantic atom smasher starts up.
The Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, where particles will begin to circulate around its 17 mile circumference tunnel next week, will recreate energies not seen since the universe was very young, when particles smash together at near the speed of light.
Such is the angst that the American Nobel prize winning physicist Frank Wilczek of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has even had death threats, said Prof Brian Cox of Manchester University .... There have also been legal attempts to halt the start up.
http://snipurl.com/3ncpe
New Robot Legs Have a Spring in Their Step
from New Scientist
Walking comes naturally to humans but is one of the greatest barriers facing roboticists. Legs with joints driven by motors struggle to recycle energy during walking in the way biological legs with springy tendons and muscles do.
A new design driven by steel cable tendons and with built-in springs could provide the answer. "The spring is important. That's something that is fundamental to being able to run in an efficient way," says Jonathan Hurst, a roboticist at Oregon State University, Oregon.
Studies of humans walking and running show that our tendons and muscles store and release up to 40% of the total energy expended. Other animals, for example kangaroos, recycle even more, says Hurst.
http://snipurl.com/3nek3
Gene Regulation Makes the Human
from Science News
Genes alone don't make the man—after all, humans and chimps share roughly 98 percent of their DNA. But where, when and how much genes are turned on may be essential in setting people apart from other primates.
A stretch of human DNA inserted into mice embryos revs the activity of genes in the developing thumb, toe, forelimb and hind limb. But the chimp and rhesus macaque version of this same stretch of DNA spurs only faint activity in the developing limbs, reports a new study in the Sept. 5 Science.
The research supports the notion that changes in the regulation of genes—rather than changes in the genes themselves—were crucial evolutionary steps in the human ability to use fire, invent wheels and ponder existential questions, like what distinguishes people from our primate cousins.
http://snipurl.com/3nfg1
Download Free Books and Movies from Local Libraries
from the Christian Science Monitor
In a time when practically any question can be answered through a Google search, brick-and-mortar libraries are evolving to remain relevant.
Rather than cede ground to search engines, e-book readers, and download services, more than 7,500 US libraries are adopting their competitor's tricks and offering digital means to access books, music, and movies—free of charge. The embodiment of this effort parked outside Boston's City Hall last week.
Inside the 75-foot-long, 18-wheel bookmobile are computer workstations, portable download devices, even a souped-up lounge replete with a "pleather" couch and a flat-screen TV—all designed to teach Bostonians how to use the newest in librarian tech: the digital lending library.
http://snipurl.com/3nfhg
Rosetta Probe Makes Asteroid Pass
from BBC News Online
The Rosetta space probe has made a close pass of asteroid Steins. The European Space Agency mission flew past the 5km-wide rock at a distance of about 800km, taking pictures and recording other scientific data.
The information was sent back to Earth for processing late on Friday and released to the public on Saturday. The asteroid pass is a bonus for Rosetta. Its prime goal is to catch and orbit Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko out near Jupiter in 2014.
Friday's pass occurred about 360 million km from Earth, in between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, in the asteroid belt.
http://snipurl.com/3nryj
Tiny Bug Takes Large Toll on Europe's Forests
from the Los Angeles Times (Registration Required)
CASTINCAL, PORTUGAL (Associated Press)—Manuel Coimbra watches in silence, his hands on his hips, as a lumberjack saws down one of his pine trees to stop a killer bug that experts say could wipe out large belts of European woodland.
The dense forests that blanket the hillsides of this rural area of west-central Portugal are the latest international conquest for the pest, which has caused ecological catastrophes in East Asia. Thousands of trees here are already dead, according to locals.
His land is on the front line of Europe's attempt to check pine wilt disease, which is spreading out of control in this southwestern corner of the continent and is a menace from Scandinavia to Italy and Greece.
http://snipurl.com/3ns0c
FDA to List Drugs Being Investigated
from the Washington Post (Registration Required)
The Food and Drug Administration will begin posting every three months a list of drugs whose safety is under investigation because of complaints brought to the agency's attention by drug companies, physicians and patients.
The FDA will name the drug and the nature of the "adverse events" but will not describe their seriousness or the number of complaints received, officials said [Friday]. Being on the list does not mean the drug is unsafe, only that the FDA is looking into that possibility.
FDA officials said they realize that the new policy, required by changes to federal law enacted last year, may unintentionally alarm some patients.
http://snipurl.com/3ns1h
Quote from: lemurdue on September 08, 2008, 10:30:46 PM
You can find Lorber's work in a variety of places. It's a fact that there are people functioning normally with practically no brain. So yeah, call it illogical all you want, but the universe is consistently an illogical place.
By the way, I read the paper (Science vol. 210, no. 4475, Dec 12, 1980 "Is Your Brain Really Necessary?") in question (university network ftw). One thing mentioned is "[g]ross surgical lesions in rat brains are known to inflict severe functional disruption, but if the same damage is done bit by bit over a long period of time, the dysfunction can be minimal." It is possible for neurons to repair minor damage, intelligence is just the connections between individual neurons. As long as it is done slowly, the brain can handle the damage. Did you really think a 28 year old article would completely destroy all logic and empiricism? Especially when it was published in one of the largest science journals in the world?
Quote from: Vene on September 08, 2008, 11:23:42 PM
Quote from: lemurdue on September 08, 2008, 10:30:46 PM
You can find Lorber's work in a variety of places. It's a fact that there are people functioning normally with practically no brain. So yeah, call it illogical all you want, but the universe is consistently an illogical place.
By the way, I read the paper (Science vol. 210, no. 4475, Dec 12, 1980 "Is Your Brain Really Necessary?") in question (university network ftw). One thing mentioned is "[g]ross surgical lesions in rat brains are known to inflict severe functional disruption, but if the same damage is done bit by bit over a long period of time, the dysfunction can be minimal." It is possible for neurons to repair minor damage, intelligence is just the connections between individual neurons. As long as it is done slowly, the brain can handle the damage. Did you really think a 28 year old article would completely destroy all logic and empiricism? Especially when it was published in one of the largest science journals in the world?
LOL :mittens: for pointing out it was from Science. My professor said that is is probably the worlds most prestigious journal devoted to scientific discovery. In fact, that volume is probably in the student library I have been working on cateloguing.
Quote from: Kai on September 08, 2008, 11:27:59 PM
Quote from: Vene on September 08, 2008, 11:23:42 PM
Quote from: lemurdue on September 08, 2008, 10:30:46 PM
You can find Lorber's work in a variety of places. It's a fact that there are people functioning normally with practically no brain. So yeah, call it illogical all you want, but the universe is consistently an illogical place.
By the way, I read the paper (Science vol. 210, no. 4475, Dec 12, 1980 "Is Your Brain Really Necessary?") in question (university network ftw). One thing mentioned is "[g]ross surgical lesions in rat brains are known to inflict severe functional disruption, but if the same damage is done bit by bit over a long period of time, the dysfunction can be minimal." It is possible for neurons to repair minor damage, intelligence is just the connections between individual neurons. As long as it is done slowly, the brain can handle the damage. Did you really think a 28 year old article would completely destroy all logic and empiricism? Especially when it was published in one of the largest science journals in the world?
LOL :mittens: for pointing out it was from Science. My professor said that is is probably the worlds most prestigious journal devoted to scientific discovery. In fact, that volume is probably in the student library I have been working on cateloguing.
I found it online on JSTOR if anybody is interested/has access.
Meh, its 28 years old. Any body that has taken an animal/human anatomy and physiology course knows that a body can repair neural structure. But thanks, JSTOR is my bitch.
I think the only thing that 'functioning without a brain' proves, like 'quantum physics' (scary quotes to indicate the term as used by crazed philosophers):
Humans are constantly learning new information about the universe, Absolute physics became relative to the level being discussed. What was once a blood radiator, became a complex organ where the soul was, to a complex computer that was necessary in all its parts, to a self repairing dynamic neural network.
Who knows what the hell we'll learn in the future? Absolute certainty about any knowledge we have is probably a bad idea.