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I keep making the excuse that I'm new here. Haven't read that thread. A link to the relevant comment(s) would be greatly appreciated if not too much trouble. Never mind, I found it. I see it dates from 2004 and Dawkins' Selfish Gene crops up in the early comments. I'll wade backwards. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hmm. wading through a lot of oyster guts but no pearls so far. TIL Archaea have their own double-strand DNA viruses. https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.1008574

1) Virus genomes can be dsDNA, ssDNA, dsRNA or ssRNA. They can also be linear, circular, segmented or continuous. 2) Directional selection of mutations in viruses can be measured by directly rate of replication. If a mutation increases replication rate, its effect on fitness is positive, if the effect is reduced replication, the effect is deleterious. No change to replication, neutral. 3) Of course selection is environmentally dependent. Mutations can result in life history trade offs where they are beneficial in one environment, but detrimental in another. E.g. increased host range at the expense of thermotolerance in Vesicular Stomatitis Virus. 4) The main mechanism, at least for SARS-COV-2 for the evolution vaccine escape mutants is mutations to the S protein which reduce the binding efficiency of vaccine derived antibodies. If the S protein changes shape, the antibodies selected for by the vaccine don't adhere as well to the novel variant, and the immune response of the host not as effective. Commonly referred to as antigenic variation. 5) The evolutionary origin of viruses is not well elucidated and likely resultant from several independent sources. Standard evolutionary theory would not predict a virus to evolve into a different kingdom of organism, nor necessarily infer common ancestry with prokaryotes/eukaryotes/archaea. We do regularly observe the evolution of novel viruses, especially via interviral recombination (e.g. the recombination of John Cunningham Virus and Epstein-Barr Virus to produce novel variants).

You claim evolution is wrong. I engaged you maturely and asked you to please elaborate on your reasoning. In response, you said "finches." That was all. I then recommended you elaborate further. Your response this time was "fossils." Are we to believe you're not just trolling? That's what the current evidence strongly implies... that you're a pathetic little troll. Now... We're perfectly willing to have our minds changed and to align with your conclusions. The remaining question is: Are you willing/able to join us in that type of meaningful exchange of ideas? Thus far, sadly all available evidence is that you're merely here to be a childish pest and I'd very much like to be proven otherwise.

Distrust and skepticism are the only things separating science from dogmatic religion. Science is not an unimpeachable monolith; it's a community of fallible human beings whose results should never be trusted, but rather constantly vetted and cross examined.

There can be confusion that follows the use of the word "code". There is no code in the sense of cipher or computer programs. DNA stores information in the form of a sequence of four nucleotides that, so long as the reading "machinery" (anthropomorphism creeps in everywhere) begins at the right point, results in a sequence of amino acids, a protein. (This is done via the intermediate of messenger RNA and not all sequences are translated into proteins but we can come back to that). The essential point is that there are 64 possible triplet codes, all output to one of twenty amino acids, "start replicating with a methionine" or "stop replicating". The process is purely biomechanical. The trick is in the genotype/phenotype feedback (I jumped a few steps there).

It's not a code it's an instruction, that's how the enigma was de-coded... “This is rather as if you imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for.” ― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubtma was de-coded...

No, let's deal with my point before you raise a new one. There have been many new variants of this virus. What do you think accounts for them, if not mutations in their genetic material?

An elderly couple had dinner at another couple's house, and after eating, the wives left the table and went into the kitchen. The two gentlemen were talking, and one said, 'Last night we went out to a new restaurant and it was really great. . . I would recommend it very highly.' The other man said, 'What is the name of the restaurant?' The first man thought and thought and finally said, 'What is the name of that flower you give to someone you love? You know... The one that's red and has thorns.' 'Do you mean a rose?' 'Yes, that's the one,' replied the man. He then turned towards the kitchen and yelled, 'Rose, what's the name of that restaurant we went to last night?'

! Moderator Note And many will never know because they approved the rule that requires you to paste your information here or give us an overview. When you're ready to comply, please open another thread.

At least give a CONDENSED version, so this thread doesn't EVAPORATE. Sorry.

Hi, I like: Infinitely many mathematicians walk into a bar. The first orders a beer, the second orders two beers, the third orders three beers. The bartender stops them and says "you owe me one twelfth of a beer."

Sorry Zapatos I missed that one. All major DNA features were created at the beginning. There is no progression of species from simple to complex. That is why so many proofs of evolution are actually examples of devolution, whales legs, snake legs, our little fingers etc. There is no evolution fir the opposite, evolution.

The existence of Life on Earth is the only problem faced by life on Earth, discuss. I used to be a tree-hugging hippy, at least by my current values, life is beautiful, biology is fascinating. But then I realised that the higher order of complexity; the "balance", between good or bad, the great interconnection on all life on Earth, has no value. I argue that animal antinatalism; reducing the amount of animal birth to prevent poor welfare, is legitimate biology. Conservation is considered to be legitimate biology despite being a philosophy; it is an attempt at finding a biologically accurate version of morality to apply to wild animals, and I argue that it is wrong. I argue that what is best for living things can be acquired by humans; what we need to do, is make sure the needs of conscious beings are met as effectively as possible, I argue this is scientifically possible. Granted, humans are distractable; it might be happening to me; my solution must be effective , make sense, and not merely make futile sense. If I harm others instead of help, I will be obligated to stop. What is the case, though, is that life runs on backwards logic. Nonconsciousness is the default from which, ideally, we need to justify conscious beings, instead, we're forced to justify being alive. Bad experience does not actually protect you from bad things, as "bad things" are a hallucination of conscious minds and are not necessarily existent. It appears to be the case then, that antinatalism does not actually need to be proven at all, but is just as self-evident as atheism; we need to deliberately say yes to life in order to justify it's continued production, and we do not have the proof to justify it. Positive experience is not effective proof. There are intensely bad implications in the argument that positive is just as valid in value as negative, appeals to equality of opinions or appeals to "democracy" (including the opinions of animals). These imply that it is ok to abuse somebody as long as enough people join in. The argument that animals would disagree is frankly bizarre, if I lacked the correct reasoning skills I would not reason that harming others is wrong, if I lacked science I would not be able to help. This may not be intuitive, however. We have challenges to face. If we are to reduce the population of animals; Where do we start? Does this view have harmful implications for the rights of conscious things? How do we navigate the risks associated with population shifts? How bad is species extinction? I am currently willing to accept the "unpleasent" implications of antinatalism implies; nonexistence (being dead) is preferable to existence, that the right to life is a kind of fiction; we're forced to be alive, only have a right to life because we have obligations to other agents, and have a right to die when we choose. What are the further implications of this? We need to answer these questions, and what I seem to see, is that people refuse to rationally engage in debate, writing off antinatalism as edgy nonsense, not good-faith debate. I have been careful to not make any edgy pleas except for possibly this one; billions of conscious beings are suffering and dying as we speak, do we really have no choice but for this to continue as normal? Biologists do not take antinatalism seriously and are conservationists instead, if there is good rationale behind this I'd like to hear it. What it appears to me, is that scientists become distracted with complex dynamical systems, which misleads them from the experience of the actual beings involved.

Hi Studiot thanks for that - I’m back from post quarantine. lots to answer Ken you’ve made the job of proving anatomical change even harder by sending it back to an almost mythological age. Why isn’t there just continuous new forms, has evolution run out of ideas? Exchemist natural selection selects from an existing gene pool. Evolution needs new genes. i won’t be going anywhere until I break a site rule which I’m sure is inevitable MigL if apes have 98% our DNA then why wouldn’t retroviruses be in the same place, or maybe 2% out Inow nothing obstinate here Zapatos are we allowed to start talking Big Bang on this thread? I’d be happy to discuss the universal framework of physics, quantum, parallel universes and Laurence Krauss’s definition of nothing if you like but not sure we can Zero zero yiu should turn your laser beam of suspicion onto your own beliefs Zero zero it seems a good thing Nessa Carey came along or what would you have done for proof of evolution?

They will be when they evolve into something other than viruses. Do you have an example of that level of change?

As this topic was aimed at believers in creation, I would like to respond. Observations like the ones you cite are secondary observations built on the assumption of naturalism. I use that word because my disbelief of evolution extends further than the accepted limited definition of the term evolution. I have never read anything that accepts that it is all built on assumptions and attempts to address those assumptions without citing gaps in knowledge. Evolution requires the proactive engineering of new body parts including self replicating DNA instruction code containing new and novel information sequences. Where is the evidence for that? virus immunity is not creating any new structures or anatomical features, and so would never escape from being a virus, ever. I appreciate this is a science forum but I must take issue with Christian brothers believing in evolution. Happy to take offline.