blike

Risking two people to save one. The United States often puts hundreds of people at risk to save one. Is this better than not? I don't know. It comes down to a moral issue. However, if spock were making the decision, the one person would have to die.

fafaIone (12:31:20 PM): i think you should just refrain from posting anything about evolution, you're just embarassing yourself now =P Blah blah sexual reproduction produced more variance blah blah better survival blah blah. You missed my first quote "I understand that it greatly sped up the evolutionary process." This implies that I understand that evolution greatly diversified things. Exactly. Now that you wasted a whole post, I'll be clearer on my statement. -- How did the leap from asexual reproduction to sexual reproduction occur? Assuming an organism's offspring spontaneously had all the mechanisms necessary for sexual reproduction, it would be feasable. However, it likely took many intermediate stages. Within these intermediate stages, sexual reproduction would be impossible, so the organism would have had to retain the ability to reproduce asexually. Any organism that wasn't able to reproduce asexually would be terminated, because sexual reproduction had not fully developed. It seems to me that in these intermediate stages, it would be advantageous to be able to asexually reproduce, thereby eliminating any organisms that were not asexually reproducing. Keep in mind, while in these intermediate stages, it is not advantageous to have sexual reproduction, because it is not functional and has no effect on reproduction. Of course, this does not mean it is eliminated, however, it is unlikely that these organisms would be favored by natural selection because they have no advantage at this point. Eventually we come to an offspring that is able to both asexually reproduce and sexually reproduce. How this occurs is part of my dilemma. Since natural selection doesn't play much of a role in this scenario, how did a trait evolve into something useful? Spontaneous mutations? How could natural selection have screened for something that has no bearing on sexual reproduction? Lets assume we have two, fully developed organisms that are able to sexually reproduce and asexually reproduce. Now we have sexual reproduction, and, if necessary, asexual reproduction. According to our resident evolutionary expert "Furthermore, Mr. Lamark, "useless adaptions" are only eliminated if they are a disadvantage. " At what point does asexual reproduction become a disadvantage? It seems to me that retaining the ability to asexually reproduce would be more advantageous than solely relying on sexual reproduction, especially in the absence of a mate. There would be no evolution without variance. Remember, diversity is not a goal of the ecosystem, merely an emergent property of natural laws. An organism that can asexually reproduce 100 times in its lifetime is more successful than a sexual organism that reproduces 4 times in its lifetime. It is true that these organisms will have little to no diversity, however, diversity is not a requirement for survival. Asexual reproduction cannot be disadvantageous. -- You continually display great mastery of putting words into people's mouths. Perhaps it is a lack of reading comprehension, or maybe it is an inherent desire to twist words enough so you can make a point. Regardless, you create the illusion of an argument by tiptoeing around the issues and stating the obvious; namely "sexual reproduction is about variance".

Whats funny is Ami doesn't even know you but he/she's got you nailed

Thanks tom

What were you doing in South America? Job or something? In another post you mention panama (i think)..was it work related? travel? just curious.

I've never lost to you in an argument. They always end up the same, you're still on your side, I'm still on mine, yet you perceive yourself as winning because A) I failed to convince you, B) you feel your argument was convincing enough C) I'm obviously misintepreting data D) your IQ is higher. "We are not trying to explain human sexuality by this study," Charles Roselli, a professor of physiology and pharmacology who led the study, said in a telephone interview. "Whether this is a big component of what contributes in humans, that's still debatable."

Those are rated according to research, which is not the main thrust of osteopathy. "When people ask me, I use the analogy of the Democrats and the Republicans. They are both writing laws, but are coming at them with different philosophies," says Dr. Tyler Cymet, a doctor of osteopathy and a professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore." Maybe one day he'll be your daddy.

An OD is an eye doctor. A DO is a physician. A DO would be perfect for that situation, they are geared towards rural medicine. And yes, they can stitch and set bones, and do anything an MD can do. Check out this article

fafaIone (9:34:47 PM): ::changes blikes user status to "Pseudoscientist #2" blike again (9:47:45 PM): too bad there's no data to back that up. anything i've said has come straight out of journals. blike again (9:48:08 PM): 8-) fafaIone (9:48:54 PM): no, everything you've said is your own little interpretation of journals blike again (9:49:16 PM): eh, no. fafaIone (9:49:25 PM): "the journal says blah, so therefore my blah is correct" no. blike again (9:49:33 PM): until you can point out how i've misinterpreted journals, you cannot argue. fafaIone (9:49:56 PM): the fossil record speaks for itself. blike again (9:49:57 PM): with specific instances. blike again (9:50:04 PM): what fossil record? blike again (9:50:12 PM): for what? fafaIone (9:50:16 PM): rofl fafaIone (9:50:18 PM): thats going on the site fafaIone (9:50:24 PM): blike again (9:49:09 PM): what fossil record? blike again (9:50:42 PM): eh, what are you trying to use the fossil record to prove? fafaIone (9:51:03 PM): just about everything i've said. blike again (9:51:15 PM): gee, how vague. in context. all you said was the fossil record. Great argument. Like I had any idea what you were speaking about.

No, it shouldn't. I said that because of this statement: I was pointing out that evolution only accounts for the development of life on earth. The purpose of the other thread was to point out that as soon as conditions for life were met, life exploded. I did not address how fast life must have developed, but it is implied by the data that it must have been a fast development. This is not to say that it did not go through many steps, but there wasn't massive amounts of time for all this to occur.

What faf said ^. "Bilke, no. Observations are "facts" theories are what explain the obersved facts. Hence evolution being a fact and a theory. " So, hang on, did we observe natural selection bringing us to our present day stage? No! Evolution is a fact as far as we can tell. (But remember, so was the second law of thermodynamics.) We have observed evolution in many instances [the famous guppy experiment]. In no way am I denying that. I'm simply stating that saying we originated from a single cell, and, through natural selection, we are what we presently are IS A THEORY. A theory is a well supported idea, saying that it is merely a theory is saying alot about its credibility. In other words, based on the data, this is what happened. Unfortunatly you seem to have added something I never said. Remember, always be careful when claiming something as "fact" or "law"; its been the downfall of many. And if you think that article cleared up the abiogenesis you are sadly mistaken. I never attacked abiogenesis with the statistical model, only convergent evolution. Abiogenesis has issues well beyond statistics. Interesting you should call my thoughts creationist psuedoscience, though. I havn't quoted a creationist yet, as I tend to disagree with the large majority of them. Most everything I've used comes from the rabidly creationist journals Science, Nature, and the magazine Scientific American.

Its based on who reproduces more. A hypothetical cell that reproduces 100 times in its 2-day lifespan is more evolutionarily successful than a cell who lives 100 days and reproduces twice. So if surviving longer means more reproduction, then longer surviving cells would become the dominant cell.

How bout them bucs

Us being here, having this discussion is a fact; explaining that we arrived at this point by means of evolution is a theory. "there is a well thought out progression between cells and protiens about 15 steps i think." Very interesting, let me see. Unfortunatly, single cells did arise like magic. See: this thread A few amino acids are a long way from a functioning cell.

It very well may be, but evolution doesn't explain abiogenesis. It doesn't account for how the Big Bang happened, nor where the initial matter/energy came from. It fails to explain sudden the sudden explosion of single-celled life, and the development of many complex organs. Therefore there is a necessity. Pluralty should not be posited without necessity. Nothing in science is fact. Nothing in science is law. They are all only observable, testable theories. I'm not disagreeing with scientific opinion, I'm merely stating that science changes. Look how many timse in the past century we've had to revise theories and laws. Thats the beauty of science; it is self-correcting. Ok, now address the necessity. Back up your claims puuuhleeeasee. First, at what point did I claim evolution was a falsehood? Second, I only claimed convergent evolution was a joke.

I'm with you dudels I was arguing with you and against convergent evolution.

Philosophical concepts have no place in science, otherwise science should likely recognize a God. "Plurality should not be posited without necessity." The problem you're having is that you are viewing Occam's Razor as the answer-all solution. That is an incorrect view. It merely removes concepts that are not needed to explain the phenomenon. However, modern science has yet to come up with a suitable explanation for our origins. We have some of it right, but there are many things left unexplained. So, do we have a necessity? Perhaps. Maybe we just havn't discovered underlying principles that guide the universe. Regardless, with your idea of Occam's Razor, there is no necessity, and therefore nothing new should be discovered regarding our origins. What would Occam's Razor say about quantum mechanics? Sometimes nature takes the scenic route.

Uh, none of the common ancestors had eyes. The fossil record can support it, but that doesn't resolve whether or not it was programmed into lower levels that didn't have eyes.

Doesn't that require infinite energy?

Dudels, you might also want to check out this thread.

convergant evolution is a joke Richard Dawkins, professor of zoology at Oxford and author of The Blind Watchmaker is a supporter of convergent evolution. He says that "Measuring the statistical improbability of a suggestion is the right way to go about assessing its believability." The Pax-6 gene group is a key regulator in the development of eyes in all vertebrates. Its analog (a very similar gene) has been found to control development of the visual systems of moluscs, insects, flatworms, and nemerteans. These are five of the six phyla that have visual systems. The paired domain of the gene contains 130 amino acids. THe match of these amino acids between insects and humans is 94%. Between a zebra fish and a human the match is 97%. So, could five genetically separate phyla have evolved these similar genes by chance? There are twentry different amino acids available to fill each of the 130 spaces on the gene. These means there are 20^130 possible combinations. There are one hundred million billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion billion ways the amino acids could arrange themselves in those 130 slots on the gene. That number FAR exceeds the number of particles in the entire universe. Any combination is possible at one time. Getting the same or even similar combinations a second time is a statisical problem. The likelihood that random mutations would produce the same combination five times is (20^130)^5. There is no way this same gene could evolve independantly in all five phyla, it must have been present in an ancestor below the Cambrian level. That could mean either Ediacarans or protozoa, but neither of these has eyes. Researches in the journal Science have even reported that, "The concept that the eyes of invertebrates have evolved completely independently from the vertebrate eye has to be reexamined." (R. Quiring et al., "Homology of the Eyeglass Gene in Drosophila to the Small Eye Gene in Mice and Aniridia in Humans," Science 265:785, 1994)

Sayonara, is workaphobe.com yours? Looks great!

Haha, most people change their major 3 times while in college. I've changed mine once already

where did I get the "r" from Photon, Proton....maybe I stole it from electron :/

Whats the scientific position on gravitrons?? I thought gravity was like a curve in spacetime...or does it CURVE spacetime? If there are gravitrons, do they ahve an effect on each other?