Edtharan

If you accept that DNA controls the development of an organism, that DNA can mutate, and, that an organism that has developed traits that give it an advantage in its environment will tend to produce more offspring in its life than other members of its spiecies, than the only conclusion is that DNA is pro evolution. If you accept these 3 points, than that is all you need for evolution to occure. All of these have been demonstrated in the lab and in wild populations. Therefore DNA has to be PRO evolution.

I realised that this does not even hint at the sample size. For instance if you multiplied the sample space by 1 x 10 to the 40000 then it would be resonable to occure in 1 year. Again, speed is dependant on sample size. If he was using a simgle petri dish then a day or two would be quick, but if he was using hundreds of dishes then a day or two is more resonable. Also remember that in a high nutrient solution bacteria can multiply very rapidly and 2 days for bacteria can be many, many generations. If he was starting off with lots of bacteria then one of these originals could have had the mutation (or the mutation was not removed - contamination) and this could also account for the rapid speed of the trait appearing. Another posability is that the method that he used to remove the gene (this is usually done by inactivating the gene rather than cutting it out of the genome itsself). If this was the method then all the mutation had to do was reactivate the gene rather than create it from a mutation. All these posabilities allow for a rapid re-aquisition of the gene without needing "a big part of evolutionary theory is missing.".

I have been diagnosed with shortterm memory loss. Most people can hold around7 "things" in their short term memory. I can usually hold around 3 to 5 items in my short term memory. Also if infomation comes at me too quickly I tend to loose items in my short term memory or miss the new infomation. I have been like this all my life (I used to have the nickname "The absent minded professor") and it make learnign hard. I am fairly intelegent (iq approx 130). I also have a lot of difficulty spelling (and my even be slightly dislexic, but I haven't been tested for it). The problems with my short term memory could be what is contributing to my bad spelling (it tends to be words greater than 5 letters that I have the most trouble with). Memory (and difficulties with it) has large impacts onnearly all aspects of our lives and can be very frustrating (esspecially when people assume that it is caused by lazyness, not paying attention or not being involved in (or careing about) the subject (this last one has occured to me on many occassions).

I don't actualy draw a line between life and non-life. There is a large grey area between them. Prions fall into this gret area. It is interesting to note that the amino acids that form prions and other protines can be detected in some gas clouds through out the galaxy. Knowing that certain amino acids can hook up into more complex protines without outside aid, and then some these protines can self replicate (with mutaiton and all that comes with that), it seems more and more likely that life could be scattered all over the galaxy. These simple chemicals (protines) can display replication (creating a duplicate useing just amino acids) mutation, and a simple for of natural selection (converting one protine into the same as its self or as part of its self) then useing this one can see that even if it is not called life, it will lead to more complex forms and could eventually lead to life.

A good argument against the existance of parapsycological effects (telekinisis, precognition, etc) is that if these effects were real then evolution would have used them. An animal that could sence if it was going to be eaten (precognition) would then be able to change what it was going to do so that it wouldn't get eaten. Therefor all predators would stave. This hasn't occured so the evidence seems to be that these phenomina do not occure. Also if the ability to communicate accross large distances by though alone (telepathy) then we would not have needed to be able to speak (telepathy would be quicker and could be done over long distances). Other animals would also have evolved this trait as they could then communicate (simple as it might be) without revealing themselves to preadtors (another good survival trait). As this is not the sistuation, then the conclusion must be drawn that this is also not poasable. If any of the "psychic" phenomina existed, they would give such an advanteg to the animal that developed it, that spiecies would never be subject to predation or need for voalization for communication (ie: mobile phones would be useless ).

Even if you do take the cell as the most basic building block of life. There are many self replicating chemiclas and systems that occure naturaly and some of these culd be a precursor to life. Take prions for example. we can argue as to weather these contitute life or not, but it is beside the point. They can self replicate by making similar protiens change into a copy. Some pritines have been shown to be able to replicate useing just a "soup" of amino acids without any help.

Actually it can. There exist genes that can have different genetic sequances without it effeting the viability of the gene. Useing fossil records we can estimate the time when 2 spiecies shared a common ancestor. We can also, knowing the rate of mutation in a particular sequance estimate the time that the particular sequance in the two spiecies were the same. Useing these 2 different dateing techniques (one fossil based and the other geneitc) scientists get simmilar results for the age of the common ancestor. This confomation of 2 different techniques to reach the same conclusion is good evidence for the existance of a common ancestor between the two spiecies. If these different techniques did not match very well then it would cast doubt that the proposed common ancestor of the two spiecies is not the common ancestor. Sometimes the genetic dating technique hasn't matched the fossil date. And scientists have then looked for a fossil that did match the date. This has thrown up some suprises. One of which was that some dinosaurs that were related to birds should have had feathers. This has scince bee confirmd by fossil evidence. This is another demonstration that this method works. A prediction was made to the existance of fossils that had not yet been discovered. The fossil evidence has scince proved this prediction to be true.

And I just heard tonight that here in Canberra it has also been the hottest Febuary on record too (and summer).

There is a country called Tuvalu (iirc spelling). If oceans rise by a few metres This country will cease to exist. There will be no "inland" for them to go to. Also who will pay for the mass migration of millions of people? Some countries that have large populations that live only a few metres above sea level do not have the funds or the land to do this. And modern technology can not cope with the loss of ariable land that would occure if we move these large populations. There woudl not be enough food (or drastic changes woudl need to occure to farming pracices world wide - which also costs money). For a start they are predicting more than a degree rise in teperature. A 1 degree rise in temperature has already occured (probably more). The increase in oceans will not just occure from mealting polar caps as ocean teperatures rise the water in them will also expand (http://hypertextbook.com/physics/thermal/expansion/ ). This rise in temperature is a global average. In some areas it will cool and others will get hotter. Some areas will rise more than the few degrees that the average, whil some will rise less (and some may actualy cool). But the average temperature will go up. There is mounting evidence that this might already be happening. the North Atlantic Current (IIRC) seems to have shifted south a bit. True. I think the biggest threat to humanity is humanity it's self, but as global warming is caused by humans then I supose it is also incllude in this threat

I am not sure, but I would say they could. If you are having these symptoms, then see a doctor immediatly.

You will die quicker from lack of sleep than lack of food. What you are attempting is very dangerous. You should be conserned. But it is your life. Though I do urge you to think about what impact you death could have on the people that know and love you.

Simple answer: Because it was not evolutionarily advantagious for us to evolve those traits. More complex answer: Our ansestor did, but as they did not evolve the intellegence to question this they are not questioning this. They are different spiecies. Gorillas are far stronger than a human, other primates have evolved other traits, and if they evolved intelegence too, they might be asking "Why are we so much stronger and intellegent than other animals."

The best book ever written on evolution is the genome.

I am living proof that ID can not be posable. I have had a cronic dislocated shoulder over the last 6 years (it keeps on dislocating even though I have had 5 opperations to stabilise it). Shoulder joints could be better designed by a human, and if the IDers are correct then the creator is far more intellegent than humans. Evolution has equiped us woth a shoulder joint that is good enough to not reduce our survival chances, but it not perfect (ie prone to dislocations). Can any IDer explain why an intellegent designer would equip us with sub par shoulders when any competent engineer could have designed a better one in a few weeks that performed as good if not better than the one we have?

I had a number of "improvements" that I was going to do. "Smells" and trails so that a creature could follow where another had gone. in the genome I was working on haveing 2 copies of each genome to better emmulate sexual reproduction. I was also working on a neural network that coudl be used to determin behaviour and the responses to the sensory system (the grid). I had got as far as designing the way the NN was going to work and started codeing, before my accident forced me to stop (this is why I havent finished all this stuff). I dislocated my shoulder (how is that for intelegent design. Make the shoulder a weak point in our anatomy. A human engineer could do a better design for the shoulder, but evolution has equiped us with one that is "good enough" ), and it hasn't healed properly for 6 years now including 5 opperations. So I would be willing to help with the design, but I can't do much programming because of this injury (I would like to see if my ideas would work as I expect them to).

Arn't we ever... Some effects of global warming are not countered by global dimming. And we are starting to see these effects NOW. Governments need to wake up and look beyond the next election and start looking out for the world and the country that they represent.

Actually it is better science to state that miracles do not exist and then try to disprove that. This is the weaker position as a single proof of a miracle is enough to disprove the position. If we take the position that miracles do exist than any disproof can be dismissed as saying "that instance was not a miracle but others might be". Science takes the weaker position becaue if the weaker position can not be disproved then it must be the corect (or near to it) answer. Like Sherlock Holmes said (IIRC):

Human reproductive cycles seem to coralate to a 28 day cycle (similar to the moon). Many animals also use the moon to govern reproductive behaviour. This is just specualtion, but, could the increased aggressivness be all about males competeing with each other? It would be interesting to see thouse police recors to see if there was an equal or different increase in violence between men an women.

Actually the problem is that we have put more CO2 in the atmosphere than was before the industrial revoultion. We need to take some of it out (not all just the stuff we have put in scince the industrial revolution). To achives a steady state we will need to control the input and out put. So if we do choose to continue to burn coal and oil and farn meat, then we will need to balance that with the amount of CO2 we take out of the atmosphere. As a forest will eventuall become neutral in the amount of CO2 uptake then we will have to keep planting forests to keep soaking up the CO2 we pump out. If we keep this up and ignore the forests we planted before then we will eventually run out of room for new forests. If however we knock down the first forest and put a new one in place then that area will continue to be a carbon sink (another problem for mature forests is that the produce a lot of methane but only soak up CO2 and as methane is 50 time more potent greenhouse gas as is CO2 then the forest must soak up 50 times more CO2 to balance it). Unfortunalte thsi wont work as the soil will release the CO2 and microbes in the soil will convert some of it into methane. Some will get retained in the soil, but not enough. Another problem of taking CO2 out of the atmosphere is that it will also take out some of the oxygen as well (2 oxygen atoms for each carbon atom - C O2) No there not. A new forest will soak up CO2 but not a mature forest. And roting trees (they do die you know ) release methane and CO2. When they cut down trees to make farmland, they usually just let the trees rot (or burn them) which releases the methane and CO2. It is this aspect that has contributed to the green house effect as it has put the methane and CO2 out in great quantities quickly and hasn't replaced the trees with new ones which would soak up the greenhouse gasses released fromt the trees that were removed. If the replanted the forest after they had farmed it it would balance out their greenhous gass emmissions from the clearing of the trees. Yup, and the Carbon that is used in growing their feed is a carbon soak. It is the fact that the plants take up CO2 and the cows release methane that is the problem. If they didn't release methane then they would be greenhouse gass neutral.

Lack of sleep will kill you faster than lack of food. One method I use when I have trouble trying to sleep is to try to picture in my minds eye a blank sheet of paper. I find that this helps to quiet my mind when it is raceing with all sorts of thoughts. Focusing on this one image can also be mentaly draining, which can help you sleep. If you find your mind wnadering, don't get frustrated. Just bring the image of the blank sheet of paper back into your minds eye. I suffer from a chronic injury, a dislocated shoulder, that interupts my sleep (its hard to sleep what your shoulder just dislocated 5 min ago) and this has helped me get to sleep even through this. So give it a try and hopefully it can help.

What aspect of preditor/prey relationships are you interested in. I have dome some of my own experiments on computer with this (not as part of any course, just out of curiosity). I used genetic algorithms to encode the behaviours of the "agents" (the predator or prey). My encoding was a 5 X 5 cell grid. It stored the action to be taken in the grid cell coresponding to where the preditor was in relation to the agent (direction and distance). The center cell represented the agent. The inner most ring of this array represented a close range to the "agent" (within a certain distance not just next to the agent). The next ring was the medium range and the outer ring was the long range. The distances each of these rings represented was also subject to the genetic algorithms evolution and so could be different for each agent. Movement cost energy, and the faster the movement the greater the energy cost. Eventually I had several 5X5 grids (one for each agent type - preditor or prey) and had planed to put in a "signalling" layer that would act like hearing and let the agents be able to "post" a message (just a number to represent a sound) in it. The agent would also have to evolve to understand these singals and respond to them (as well as to what signal it would post in this layer and under what circumstances). But I never got around to doing this last modification to the program. One of the "discoveries" I made about these agents is that it was not the predator/prey relation ship that was the strongest influence on the evolution of the agents. It was the Prey/Prey or Predator/Predator relationships that gave the strongest evolutionary pressures. This has also been confirmed in the real world, with real animals. Just remember, if a lion is chasing you, you don't have to be faster than the lion. You just have to be faster than the person next to you .

No that is just my sig. (if the sig in my sentance is false, it therefore must be true, therefor it must be false, etc...) It is a linguistic paradox.

I think this law will not be that effective. There are laws now aginst violence but that doen not stop people acting violent. I think the cause and solution to the problem is much deeper. It lies in the cultureal attitdues of people and making laws will not stop it (though it might send it underground and be harder to track). Isn't there laws that make it a criminal offese to "incite violence" already? Also is a group has a belief or behaviour that is offensive against another group, and the second group reacts with hate, who insighted the hate. Was it the group that had those beliefs and behaviours, or was it the group that hated them for those beliefs and behaviours? So this could be turned around so that one could argue that "Your religions insites me to hate you, therefore you are guilty of insiteing religious hatred" (If you get a good lawyer).

And to top it off as the siod degrades it looses carbon as CO2. Methane is a worse greenhouse gas than CO2. Also if we burnt the methane to produce power then we would not be taking carbon out of the atmosphere. We would essentualy just be cycling it back into it. Carbon sequestration in the form of burried logs (I mean deep under ground like they are proposeing to burry the CO2 extracted from industry) might be viable but expensive.

I'm not 100% sure what you are asking here but I will try to answer your question. Energy doens not jsut mean heat, or electrical, or chemical energy. Energy is a very nebulous concept. So what I ment was not a physical energy (like electrical or chemical), but more "The capacity of a system to do work". Work here could also mean many things (and does), but does include the processing of infomation. So this could be taken to mean that the energy of a system is its capacity to process infomation (and growth can be thought of as processing the infomation in the genes).