lucaspa

The Tree was pulling your leg. ALL my papers were submitted in Times New Roman. Every paper I have ever reviewed has had the text in Times New Roman. 12 point is better than 11 point, but never go below 11 point. Some people justify both sides, but I prefer just left justification.

Thanks for the closer reading. Phil, I haven't found any other classification of the forms of natural selection. These are the forms discussed in all the textbooks of evolutionary biology I've seen, i.e. http://www.evotutor.org/Selection/Sl5A.html If you've seen a different way to classify the forms of natural selection, I'd appreciate if you would post the source, BUT I see Wikipedia lists a number of "forms" of selection. This is another reason why Wikipedia cannot be used as a source in a serious academic or science discussion. You are being a bit pedantic. "Some change" may not be enough to change the fitness peak. Look at sharks or horseshoe crabs. Yes, there is enough change to give slightly different species, but overall their environment is constant such that there has been stabilizing selection for tens of millions of years. There are 2 ways to look at natural selection: elimination of traits/designs that aren't quite as good or preservation of traits/designs that are good. Darwin looked on NS as a preserver or selector of good traits/designs: "But if variations useful to any organic being do occur, assuredly individuals thus characterized will have the best chance of being preserved in the struggle for life; and from the strong principle of inheritance they will will tend to produce offspring similarly characterized. This principle of preservation, I have called, for the sake of brevity, Natural Selection." [Origin, p 127 6th ed.] "Change" depends on the environment. And while yes, if looked at in total the environment might change, that does not mean the environment for each and every locus will change. One locus can be under directional selection and another under stabilizing selection. Futuyma cites Travis J, The role of optimizing selection in natural populations. Ann. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 20: 279-296, 1989 as a source documenting stabilizing selection. Much of the data on the existence of stabilizing selection was gathered before 1980. Some of the recent papers documenting stabilizing selection are listed first, followed by some of the older papers: 1: Trends Genet. 2006 Aug;22(8):456-61. Epub 2006 Jun 27. Natural selection on gene expression. Gilad Y, Oshlack A, Rifkin SA. Department of Human Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago, Il 60637, USA. gilad@uchicago.edu Changes in genetic regulation contribute to adaptations in natural populations and influence susceptibility to human diseases. Despite their potential phenotypic importance, the selective pressures acting on regulatory processes in general and gene expression levels in particular are largely unknown. Studies in model organisms suggest that the expression levels of most genes evolve under stabilizing selection, although a few are consistent with adaptive evolution. However, it has been proposed that gene expression levels in primates evolve largely in the absence of selective constraints. In this article, we discuss the microarray-based observations that led to these disparate interpretations. We conclude that in both primates and model organisms, stabilizing selection is likely to be the dominant mode of gene expression evolution. An important implication is that mutations affecting gene expression will often be deleterious and might underlie many human diseases." 1: Hunt J, Blows MW, Zajitschek F, Jennions MD, Brooks R. Reconciling Strong Stabilizing Selection with the Maintenance of Genetic Variation in a Natural Population of black field crickets (Teleogryllus commodus). Genetics. 2007 Jul 29; [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 17660544 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] 2: Bottin L, Isnard C, Lagrange A, Bouvet JM. Comparative molecular and phytochemical study of the tree species Santalum austrocaledonicum (Santalaceae) distributed in the New-Caledonian archipelago. Chem Biodivers. 2007 Jul;4(7):1541-56. PMID: 17638336 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 3: Zhang XS, Hill WG. Multivariate stabilizing selection and pleiotropy in the maintenance of quantitative genetic variation. Evolution Int J Org Evolution. 2003 Aug;57(8):1761-75. PMID: 14503618 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 4: Burger R, Gimelfarb A. Genetic variation maintained in multilocus models of additive quantitative traits under stabilizing selection. Genetics. 1999 Jun;152(2):807-20. PMID: 10353920 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 5: Brooks R, Hunt J, Blows MW, Smith MJ, Bussiere LF, Jennions MD. Experimental evidence for multivariate stabilizing sexual selection. Evolution Int J Org Evolution. 2005 Apr;59(4):871-80. PMID: 15926696 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 6: Lemos B, Meiklejohn CD, Caceres M, Hartl DL. Rates of divergence in gene expression profiles of primates, mice, and flies: stabilizing selection and variability among functional categories. Evolution Int J Org Evolution. 2005 Jan;59(1):126-37. Here are some of the older papers: 1: Kaufman PK, Enfield FD, Comstock RE. Stabilizing Selection for Pupa Weight in TRIBOLIUM CASTANEUM. Genetics. 1977 Oct;87(2):327-341. PMID: 17248766 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] 2: Aslam M, Browder LE. Stabilizing selection for pathogenicity in cereal rust fungi. Basic Life Sci. 1976 Mar 1-7;8:205-12. No abstract available. PMID: 1032100 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 3: Curtsinger JW. Stabilizing selection in Drosophila melanogaster. J Hered. 1976 Jan-Feb;67(1):59-60. PMID: 816847 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] 4: Dawson PS. Directional versus Stabilizing Selection for Developmental Time in Natural and Laboratory Populations of Flour Beetles. Genetics. 1975 Aug;80(4):773-783. PMID: 17248688 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher] 5: Ellis WS. Mortality and birth weight in Philadelphia Blacks: an example of stabilizing selection. Am J Phys Anthropol. 1973 Jan;38(1):145-9.

The problem, iNow, is that your conditions ("if") are not always going to be met. For selection to work, you can't depend on that type of chance: IF the individual had children and IF the ones the altruist saved helped the offspring. So now you are making up "just-so" stories. And ones that obviously are going to be difficult to be met. AND, if they are not met only a small percentage of the time, then the allele disappears from the population rather quickly. BUT, in order for the alleles to be passed on, the individual HAVING the alleles must pass them on. So yes, you can evolve a behavior to help the group, but that behavior can NOT involve your certain death! Yes, you RISK for the group, but it must be so that the individual will most often survive the behavior. Throwing yourself on a grenade has NO possible survival.

No emotional bent. Just testing the assertion and looking at data that falsifies the hypothesis. Remember, if you only look for data to support a hypothesis, you can ALWAYS find it. Have pit bulls attacked humans? Yes. Have other breeds attacked humans -- from postmen to babies? Yes. So, to test the claim of "unusually agressive", you would have to compare attacks by other breeds vs pit bulls to see if pit bulls have more. The only statistics are by people that, by your criteria, are "biased" -- because they are advocating a particular position. So, one of the "biased" sites is here: http://www.dogbitelaw.com/Dog%20Attacks%201982%20to%202006%20Clifton.pdf you will find that pit bulls do havethe most attacks resulting in serious injury of all the breeds. They are closely followed by Rottweiler's and Presa Canarios. Were these breeds included in the NZ ban? What descriptions? You didn't provide a source. This is a bare assertion. Not according to to the webpage. So I have to ask: what is YOUR emotional attachment? Bitten by a pit bull during your life? Nice of you to finally present some data. And a .gov source as well! Cool! Now, let me point out something when you analyze data. Again, the idea is to look for data that is COUNTER to your hypothesis, not just in support. YOU have to be the harshest critic of your position. So let's look at the last line: number of deaths for which the breed is unknown. The total there for the entire time period is 238. That is 6 more than the total for the breeds listed (232). This can obviously skew the data away from pit bulls to #2 -5 in the list. So you have to take the conclusion with a healthy bit of skepticism because the unknown breed can change the picture.

All of you, I strongly suggest you get a copy of the October issue of Scientific American. It has an excellent article on what consciousness is and 2 theories on "where" it resides in the brain.

1. A couple of your references are in Phys. Rev. Letters. I suggest that as a start. You'll at least get comments. 2. The Abstract is too abstract. You need to outline your solutions, not just say you have one. You say "the new qualitative model". That's not enough. You need to outline that model and give its essential features. Look at some abstracts of papers in Phys. Rev. Letters as a guide. 3. Other than that, I'll let the editor of Phys. Rev. Letters and the reviewers do the commenting.

Yrrg, Big Bang states that the universe has a beginning. That "before" that beginning there was nothing. In this context, nothing = no spacetime, no matter, no energy. All that came into existence at the Big Bang. Kaku is saying something different. He is postulating an 11 dimensional universe -- so the universe was not "nothing" but had dimensions. However, it was "empty" in the sense that there was no matter or energy. Actually, no. There are at least 6 hypotheses as to First Cause for our universe. In no particular order they are: 1. Logical and mathematical necessity. Briefly, the laws that describe our universe were so powerful that they made a universe for them to describe. 2. Quantum fluctuation. This is basically that the universe has no cause. 3. God created the universe. 4. No Boundary. In this the universe is self-contained and just IS. It never had a beginning. 5. Ekpyrotic 6. Loop quantum cosmology where our universe came from the collapse of a former universe. So far, this is a textbook example of multiple competing hypotheses with insufficient data to eliminate any of them. As such, you can't use the existence of the universe as proof that it was created by God. There are other ways to get a universe. You have to learn the differnce between analogy and reality. Analogy is used to try to explain something. To relate something that is outside our experience to something that is within our experience. The Big Bang and expansion of our universe is LIKE the expansion of a balloon. It is trying to take something in 4 D Reimann geometry and relate it to something we are familiar with. It's not, obviously, exactly like a balloon. BB states that the universe began as an infinitely small volume of spacetime that was also infinitely hot. As spacetime expanded the universe cooled and matter condensed (another analogy) from energy. Explaining how all galaxies are moving away from us is LIKE dots on a balloon. Put dots on a balloon and then blow it up. As the balloon surface expands the dots will all move away from each other. MrSandman, if you truly believe in God, then it behooves you to listen to God's other book: Creation. Science studies that second book. You need to listen to God and not just to a man-made interpretation of the Bible. If you do that, then you are making a false idol to worship. When Flood Geology was shown to be wrong and that a world-wide Flood had never happened, Christians had to decide what to do. They decided to listen to both God's books: "If sound science appears to contradict the Bible, we may be sure that it is our interpretation of the Bible that is at fault." Christian Observer, 1832, pg. 437 Unfortunately, in the early 1900s a group of people decided that they would listen to their man-made interpretation of the Bible only. Thus was Fundamentalism born. They turned their back on God and worshipped a literal, inerrant Bible. Creationism comes from Fundamentalism. Also, creationism is different from Creation. Creation is a belief. It is a theological statement "God created". Creationism is a scientific theory on HOW God created. It has been shown to be wrong. Evolution is a scientific theory in biology. For Christians, it is HOW God created the diversity of species. Big Bang is a scientific theory in cosmology. Again, for Christians it is HOW God created the universe.

I think it's past time that we discussed that natural selection comes in 3 forms. Too often speculations in this forum (and others) are based upon the premise that natural selection only directionally changes a population. Purifying or stabilizing selection. Also called normalizing selection, this type of selection acts to preserve a certain array of phenotypes because of their selective advantage. Due to mutation and recombination, any Mendelian population can generate an enormous array of phenotypes, but selection limits the phenotypes to those of selective advantage. This is the type of selection seen when a species is well-adapted to a constant environment and is the type of selection responsible for stability. When a population is well-adapted to an environment (on a fitness peak), then ANY change will likely move the individual off the peak, making it less adapted. Thus natural selection in purifying selection will eliminate variation and cause a population to become genetic homogenous. Directional selection. This is the form of natural selection people associate with the words "natural selection". This happens when either 1) a population moves into a new environment or 2) when the environment is changing in a single direction. Directional selection takes the form of shifting the norm of variations. Now the population is formed from phenotypes that were presently at low frequencies and the bell-shaped curve of the parameters of a trait shift either right or left. Disruptive selection. This happens when a population encounters 2 (or more) separate environments in different areas of the region it occupies. Here the bell-shaped curve develops a valley in the middle between the two peaks representing the different regions. If there is little gene flow between populations, the phenotypes of the species will split into 2 separate bell-shaped curves. This would be allopatric speciation. An example of a species undergoing disruptive selection is the pocket gopher Thomomys bottae. We see different coat color, body size, and skeletal proportions. The herring gull is another example of disruptive selection. Disruptive selection has also been used by Thoday and others in the lab to produce reproductive isolation (species).

You need to define "mutationist hypotheses" From the Abstract: "However, once the mutations are incorporated into the genome, they may generate developmental constraints that will affect the future direction of phenotypic evolution. It appears that the driving force of phenotypic evolution is mutation, and natural selection is of secondary importance." Actually, if Nei had looked in the literature, he would have found that it is natural selection that puts on the constraints, not development! Look at the bold. When a trait is under 2 or more separate stabilizing (natural) selection, it is "fixed". It is natural selection that is doing the constraining. EVOLUTION: G Wagner, Complexity matters. Science, 279, Number 5354 Issue of 20 February 1998, pp. 1158 - 1159 Are organisms like liquid droplets, infinitely malleable by the changing forces of evolution, or do they contain a "frozen core"--the Bauplan, or body design, which remains little changed under the varying adaptive pressures a lineage encounters during its history? Until quite recently, these questions have divided evolutionary biologists (as well as philosophers) into two almost nonoverlapping camps. On the one hand are the so-called reductionists, largely recruited from the ranks of population genetics and associated disciplines, who are strongly committed to the adaptationist program of evolutionary biology. This group tends toward a world view in which there are no limits to an organism's variability and its ability to evolve. On the other hand are those biologists who primarily study whole organisms or complex phenotypic traits of organisms. This second group emphasizes the need to understand the constraints on evolutionary change that arise as a consequence of the intrinsic functional and developmental complexity of organisms. On page 1210 of this issue, Waxman and Peck (1) present a new mathematical result that reconciles most of the differences between these two camps. Population genetic equations predict, so they show, that parts of the phenotype effectively "crystallize" as the complexity of systems increase. But what is the problem to which this result is the solution? The intellectual history of the problem goes back to the synthesis of Darwinian evolutionary theory and Mendelian genetics forged by the fathers of modern evolutionary theory, R. A. Fisher, S. Wright, and T. Dobzhansky. Through the marriage of genetics and Darwinism, it became clear that the process of evolution can be understood, or at least described, as changes in gene frequencies over time (2). New genes arise by mutation and are either lost (most likely) or they replace their parental genes, by selection or genetic drift. This, it turns out, is the most elementary level on which evolution can be explained. Consequently, a lot of effort was and continues to be invested in research directed at understanding these elementary processes. This remarkably successful research program has been pursued with the implicit assertion that evolution of real and complex organisms is just more of the same, and that no qualitatively new phenomena emerge as a result of increasing complexity (3). In this view, complexity is fundamentally irrelevant to an understanding of evolution. A corollary of this line of thinking is that all aspects and characters of the organism are variable and constantly changing (although at different rates), and the concept of a "Bauplan" (the body organization characteristic of a larger group of organisms) is an illusion (4). A well-informed minority of organismal biologists, however, never were convinced of this radical view. Theirs is a more pluralistic view: yes, they agree, many characters are highly variable and their differences among species and populations can be understood as adaptations. But at some stages of evolution certain characters effectively "click in" and remain fixed in the descendent group of species (5-7). For instance, the chorda dorsalis (the embryonic precursor of our vertebral column) is absent in invertebrates, variably present in the relatives of vertebrates (ascidians and related groups) and absolutely fixed in vertebrates. The first who most clearly saw a connection between this pattern and increasing complexity was Rupert Riedl in the 1970s (6). He postulated that with increasing complexity some characters become more important because more and more new characters are functionally or developmentally predicated on them. Once such characters have accumulated many "responsibilities," mutational change will be detrimental and thus these characters become evolutionarily fixed. This increasing burden leads to fixation of characters. The problem with this view, however, was that it did not connect well with the then current population genetic theory. Standard population genetic theory supports a liquid genome metaphor. In the balance between mutation and selection, each population settles into a state in which the most fit genotype is always surrounded by a sizable swarm of mutant genotypes buzzing around the best genotype (8), so much so that the concept of wild-type becomes meaningless. Variation is the name of the game. Only the amount of variation depends, in a continuous manner, on the relative strength of stabilizing selection, genetic drift, and mutation. Well, not exactly, according to the report by Waxman and Peck (1), which shows that there is a complexity limit beyond which genes can freeze into a fixed state and where the swarm of genetic variation suddenly disappears like fog in the sun. In the Waxman-Peck model, the complexity limit is reached once the genes affect more than two characters that are under simultaneous stabilizing selection. To be precise, this freezing phenomenon has been described before (9), but it was seen as an arcane result of mathematical population genetics of uncertain significance and familiar to only a very few specialists. The significance of the present report is that Waxman and Peck have shown that this obscure property of mutation-selection equations has a connection to a generic property of organisms: complexity. Each gene has many effects and functions, each character is functionally connected to multiple others. Since this is the case, the freezing of genetic and phenotypic states is a necessary outcome, just as many organismal biologists have suspected for more than a century." It is accurate. GC content can't impose a "direction" to evolution because it is not the GC content that is important: it is the trait. Genes are not the unit of selection; the individual is. So, GC content does not dispose to one set of traits vs another, does it?

No, it's SR. http://www2.slac.stanford.edu/vvc/theory/relativity.html "One of the strangest parts of special relativity is the conclusion that two observers who are moving relative to one another, will get different measurements of the length of a particular object or the time that passes between two event" So, until you can get SR right, I'm afraid I have to be very skeptical of such statements as " LET and special relativity are mathematically equivalent, " I think you have confused 2 things: formulating theories and evaluating them. Theory evaluation is the process of deciding whether a theory is accurate or false. That is done solely on data. Physicists may "strive for aesthetics" but that doesn't mean they decide the validity of a theory on its aesthetics. Just look at Feynman's "sum over paths" approach or M Theory. Not at all aesthetic. The history of physics shows that many physicists have made statements regarding simplicity and aesthetics: Freeman Dyson comes immediately to mind. However, when it comes down to really evaluating theories, that is always done on the data. This doesn't negate what I said. Yes, physicists try to make the theory as simple as possible. We all do. However, when it comes to evaluating competing theories, that is done on the data. If the more complicated theory explains the data better, then that is the one considered valid. Apples and oranges. Pioneer, a human is an organism. Cancer is an aberrant cell WITHIN an organism. Cancer is no more a lifeform than a multipotent adult stem cell (MASC) is. Both have an unlimited growth potential but neither can exist as an independent organism. Remember, cancer and MASCs are PART of an existing organism. It is not rating multicellularity "higher". Cancer does not have a "selective advantage" in terms of evolution, because it kills the ability to transmit alleles to the next generation by killing the organism. Remember, humans reproduce by germ cells, not cancer cells. There is no such thing as a "de-evolutionary" state. Cancer is a disease of the individual that kills the individual. Think instead of an endothelial cell that produces plaque that clogs a coronary artery. This isn't evolution, it's a malfunction within the organism. Or think of rheumatoid arthritis, where the immune cells attack the other cells of the body. This isn't an evolutionary advantage for the immune cells, it's a malfunction of those cells. You are suffering from the idea that there is "progress" in evolution. That simply isn't true. Evolution is adaptation of the population to an environment. To have "move forward" you have to make a non-scientific judgement call as to what constitutes "forward". For instance, is the blind mole rat an evolutionary move "forward" because it is adaptation to living underground our is it a move "backward" because it is the loss of the eyes? You cannot look at monarchies as biological evolution! The kings had no selective advantage over any other person. In fact, if you look you see that kings often had LESS children than their subjects. It's not that evolution is "waiting", but consider what happens when the environment IS stable. Once a population is well-adapted to that environment, then any change is going to be less adapted. So now you have a different form of natural selection operating: purifying or stabilizing selection. It will act to eliminate variation because only a few sets of alleles will be best in that particular environment. Pioneer, PLEASE do some reading on evolution! There is considerable data to support "similar stuffs evolving but not" identical creatures. Parallel evolution demonstrates that similar environments will produce similar adaptations. This is because environments are design problems and there are only so many designs that will work. Thus sharks, ichthyosaurs, and dolphins all have the same general shape. The wolf and Tasmanian wolf have the same general shape. So, given the limitation of environments and limitations of physics, it is possible for natural selection to invent the same general pattern again and again. On the other level, some experiments have shown that even specifics are done the same: Speciation in action Science 272:700-701, 1996 1. L. Rieseberg, B. Sinervo, C. Linder, M. Ulngerer, D. Arias, Science 272, 741 (1996). What happened was that the researchers produced in the greenhouse the genetic changes leading to the formation of a naturally occurring species of sunflower. The species is Helianthus anomalus and molecular evidence suggested it was formed by recombinational speciation of H.annuus and H. petiolarus. This is a process in which two species hybridize, and the mixed genome of the hybrid becomes a third species that is reproductively isolated from its ancestors. So what the researchers did was hybridize H. annuus and H. petiolarus and produced 3 independent hybrid lines undergoing different regimes of mating to siblings and backcrossing to H. annuus. After 5 generations the DNA was analyzed for comparison to the wild type and to see which ancestral genes persisted in the hybrids. It matched with the wild type. Remarkably, despite the different crossing regimes, all 3 lines converged to nearly the identical gene combinations. The gene recombinations were complex, but repeatable in all 3 hybrid lines. The fact that the genes in the lab hybrid matched wild H. anomalus indicates that artificial selection and natural selection both selected many genes for fertility rather than adaptations to the environment. The fact that all 3 hybrid lines converged to nearly identical genetic content and these matched the wild type (a 4th hybrid line) shows that several paths of evolution in this case reach the same point. As Jerry Coyne says in discussing the research "In Helioanthus, however, the sequence of evolutionary change is largely repeatable over both the long and short term: When this tape is rewound, it plays pretty much the same program." Correct. Pioneer is looking ONLY at the decrease in entropy of proteins, DNA, etc. He figures if there are more cells, then there are more proteins, DNA, etc. and thus more decrease in entropy. BUT, if we look at the level of the ORGAN or TISSUE, cancer represents an INCREASE in entropy. Cancer is LESS ordered than the tissue or organ that it replaces. A prime example are teratomas. These have a multitude of tissues in them, but they are not ordered as they are in the human body. You have a disordered mixture of teeth, cartilage, intestine, skeletal muscle, blood vessels, etc. Pioneer, this is what I thought you were doing. Nice of you to confirm it! Look above to what I said about the organ or tissue. No, it wouldn't. Because a lymphocyte is not a "viable lifeform", either. It can't pass on its genes to the next generation because a lymphocyte is only one cell type in a multicellular organism. There is a difference between "alive" and "viable lifeform". That's part of the confusion here. To be alive an entity must 1) metabolize, 2) respond to stimuli, 3) grow, and 4) reproduce. By that criteria, both cancer cells and lymphocytes are "alive". But that doesn't make them a viable lifeform. The entire multicellular organism that is a human is the viable lifeform. The individual cell types cannot exist on their own. Now, there are, of course, unicellular organisms that are viable lifeforms. It's just that single cells within a multicellular organism are not. But genetics are not the only criteria for a successful president! You also have to consider the role of environment is shaping experience and learning how to be an effective politician! Yes, you can persuasively argue that the current system does not favor the best politician but favors other characteristics. However, that doesn't mean the "test" will do any better! The only way to evaluate who is and who is not an effective politician is to let them participate in politics!

Mirabelle, if we look just at the Abstract of the publication we get: "We have identified, cultured, characterized, and propagated adult pluripotent stem cells (PSC) from a subset of human peripheral blood monocytes. These cells, which in appearance resemble fibroblasts, expand in the presence of macrophage colony-stimulating factor and display monocytic and hematopoietic stem cell markers including CD14, CD34, and CD45. We have induced these cells to differentiate into mature macrophages by lipopolysaccharide, T lymphocytes by IL-2, epithelial cells by epidermal growth factor, endothelial cells by vascular endothelial cell growth factor, neuronal cells by nerve growth factor, and liver cells by hepatocyte growth factor. The pluripotent nature of individual PSC was further confirmed by a clonal analysis. The ability to store, expand, and differentiate these PSC from autologous peripheral blood should make them valuable candidates for transplantation therapy." There is nothing here about de-differentiation. Instead, it is as I said: "I would submit that the PBMCs are circulating undifferentiated stem cells." That's what the abstract of the PNAS paper says they are. They are isolated using the same procedure to isolate mononuclear cells from blood: a Ficoll-Hypaque gradient. If you read the paper the authors got 2 populations -- monocytes that were about 90-95% of the population and another smaller population they called f-monocytes. It is the f-monocytes that proliferated, took over the culture, and eventually responded in differentiation assays to make new phenotypes. I can understand your problem: if you didn't either 1) treat with CSF and LIF (particularly the LIF) and 2) allow the f-monocytes to overgrow the culture, then yes, you would get osteoclasts! After all, monocytes are the precursor cells to oosteoclasts. As for "solid evidence", I don't see that Huberman has any other publications on these cells! He did it once and quit. If you want to see "solid review of the data" and "independent testing", look at Darwin Prockop or PA Lucas. Both labs have had many publications and collaborations with other labs that grew the same cells. By the procedure in this paper, Huberman could have isolated a number of adult stem cells: Prockop's mesenchymal stem cells, Osiris' (Caplan's) mesenchymal stem cells, Goodell's "side population", Verfaillie's multipotent adult progenitor cells, or Lucas' multipotent adult stem cells. All have CD34 and Huberman did not do a more extensive CD profile of the cells (MASCs, for instance, are CD14 positive), all adhere to plastic, and all have roughly the morphology in culture of f-monocytes. The use of M-CSF and uptake of particles confuses the issue, since none of the other researchers used this growth factor or performed this assay. Therefore there is no way to tell whether the f-monocytes (or PSCs) are identical or different from the other adult stem cells.

Sorry, but I don't find my questions answered. Ignoring the questions doesn't make them go away. They exist whether you respond to me or not. If you can't respond, it means that the argument you are making is weak. Look at what you wrote. If we only "know" of our emotions because we can describe them, then you have excluded most species as having emotions. After all, they can't describe them. Can cows or pigs "describe" sensations? No. They don't have language. So this means that the species that you would possibly consider as having "rights" would be restricted to chimps. Perhaps you could add dolphins and gorillas to this. Otherwise, we don't know of any other species that has language. BUT, in order for your argument to have validity, you MUST know. Remember, you based your argument on "rights" on the functioning of brains. Without the knowledge, the argument fails. What link? Please make it again. Now you are defining a unique term -- one you have invented -- to another term you have invented. Not good. For a definition to be valid, it must use words that we have a consensus on definition. Since this premise is the foundation of your argument, you MUST provide a source for this. You must establish it as fact. You can't just assert it is true. You must document its truth. So, until you establish this as "fact", your argument is not valid. I'm sure everyone is waiting to see the documentation. 1. Was Descarte correct? Does our existence depend on the ability to "think". How about rocks? They don't "think". By Descartes' axiom, they don't exist. What I have just done is falsify Descartes. He was wrong. 2. How does this relate to animal "rights"? Are you saying other species "think"? If so, how do you know they think? As you can see, you didn't answer my questions. Instead, you went off on another assertion. You need to establish the validity of the assertions. As an aside, this isn't a mark against creationism. What you have done is highlight the limitation of humans as designers. You have noted, correctly, that natural selection is a better designer than humans. You have not made the argument that a more intelligent sapient entity could not make the design. I would note that humans are using natural selection to design intelligent machines: 13. http://www.discover.com/aug_03/gthere.html?article=feattech.html Use of Darwinian selection to evolve of the ability to think in computers. Yes. Remember, evolution happens to POPULATIONS, not individuals. So, an individual who thought the smell or taste was good would eat and die. Those individuals lucky enough to be born so that they did not find the taste/smell desirable would not eat. Of course, in humans there is also cultural learning. IOW, the TRIBE would be such that individuals would try everything. Those individuals unlucky enough to each poisonous food would teach the other individuals -- by their death -- not to eat that food. Sorry, but mistaken. Amoebas can be poisoned by alkaloids. However, amoebas have receptors on the cell membrane. Reaction of the poison with the receptor triggers a series of chemical reactions that results in the amoeba not ingesting the chemical. Chemicals that can diffuse passively across the cell membrane -- such as cyanide -- however, are still poisonous. Not according to your definition of "knowing" and "implicit knowledge" you posted above. According to that definition, don't we already "know" about women and BBQ just as we "know" of the numbers 1-5? If not, why not? What I'm getting at, Someguy, is your inconsistency on how you apply "knowing" and "implicit knowledge". Sometimes you insist on it, othertimes in situations where it would apply, you deny it. I think that you are reacting to just the individual comments without taking them thru your larger hypothesis. You need to look at ALL your responses in regard to your overall thesis before you make them, in order to 1) find possible inconsistencies before you write them and 2) notice inconsistencies so that you can either modify or abandon the overall thesis. You gave your answer below: "also a danger with using dogs in examples of animals nature and evolution is that they were bred." They were subject to artificial selection. Those individual dogs that showed "grief" would be selected by humans to breed because the humans would think this "grieving" was an indication of loyalty to the human. You used "grief" as a reason to extend rights within the human species to other species. Now you seem to have undermined and contradicted your own argument. That was honest of you to do that, but are you going to realize that the position of extending "rights" to other species is now invalid? 1. Natural selection works only on the individual, not on groups. You have to find a benefit for the individual, not the group. 2. There can be no selection in favor of someone giving his life. Any alleles that would favor that are eliminated during the act. So there is no way for that particular "altruistic tendency" to evolve. 3. History consistently shows the opposite. What's more, this can't have evolved when there are governments and soldiers. The time frame is too short. This would have had to have evolved back when H. sapiens lived in small groups and there were no spare resources. And, of course, any individual that made such a sacrifice BEFORE he had kids would simply have eliminated the alleles from the gene pool. So, there is no consistency that such a sacrifice would have resulted in more surviving offspring. In fact, all the data indicate that it would not have done so. But this particular gallant individual is dead. Which makes it kinda difficult to be liked by women.

Luminal, you are inadvertently comparing apples and oranges. In terms of replacement of molecules in our bodies, it takes place over time. That is, not all the molecules are replaced in an instant. So there is always a mix of old vs new proteins, lipids, DNA, and RNA. At t = 10 years, the molecules in your body will be different from t = 0. But there never are 2 complete bodies existing at the same time. You are postulating something entirely different. You are postulating something that doesn't happen naturally: duplication of every molecule in the body such that there are now 2 bodies where there was one. Since there are now 2 entirely separate bodies, there are now 2 "points-of-view". The thoughts MAY, or may not, be identical in the 2 bodies, but you now have 2 bodies existing at the same time. Perhaps for the first Plank time, but immediately the information of both entities would be different. If nothing else, what Body A is seeing is different from Body B. When that is done, there are 2 points-of-view, because each body is occupying a different spot in space. No, the process is critical, because the process produces different things. As it occurs in nature, there is always only one body at any given time. The process you imagine produces 2 bodies at the same time. Don't be so hasty. You now have a second (or any smaller amount of time) where the individual did not exist. Therefore you can cogently argue that the original person is gone. What you now have is a copy that is VERY close to being the original, but is not quite identical because of the missing time. It does answer the question at hand. Pioneer stated "If you look at the recycle and replacment of material in the brain, it works in a way so there is little interruption of services. The synapses are fairly large relative to molecular size, such that partial replacement won't affect service." IOW, the pattern of firing of neurons is not affected because that firing involves tens of thousands of molecules. If you replace 10 of those molecules with molecules that are functionally and structurally identical, the firing pattern doesn't change. And, if you bothered to look at the October Scientific American, it is the pattern of firing of neurons that makes consciousness. Perhaps an analogy that would make sense to you is that the functioning machine that is a car does not change because you replace one sparkplug. The firing of the sparkplugs into the cylinders to power the car continues to happen. It's not that difficult. A consciousness might reside in the copy, depending on whether you can get the neurons to fire or not. That consciousness would be, initially, VERY similar to mine, perhaps even identical. However, it is immediately going to diverge from mine because the pattern of neuron firing is going to diverge. Immediately the neuron firing associated with sense perception is going to change, simply because the copy occupies a different spot in spacetime than I do. Even if we are side-by-side, we are going to view objects from a slightly different angle. If the copy is made in a separate location, then the divergence is going to happen even faster. No to all of those. And it's very simple why the answer is the way it is: consciousness is not located in the individual molecules. It is located at a higher order interaction between molecules: firing patterns of neurons.

As I said, a political reaction. Based on a value judgement: "only one in a hundred to attack and kill a bably to make the whole damn breed too dangerous to have around." However, for that value judgement to be valid, do you have statistics on humans attacked by German shepherds or Rottweiler's? Argument from authority. Not data. I presented data that pit bulls make good family dogs IF they are not trained for fighting but treated like family dogs. You don't have data, just what you heard that experts said. Do you really have the transcripts of the testimony? Perhaps not all the experts actually said that. Perhaps the politicians simply took the easiest course. Wouldn't be the first time politicians did that and did an injustice. But the set IS! They couldn't keep an animal on the set if it wasn't gentle and kept attacking the child actors! Is the data wrong? That's the issue: is the data correct or not? Saying "bias" is making a strawman. Your original statement was not about "good pets". It was "I suggest you do some reading. Wolves are not domesticable. http://www.wolftrust.org.uk/petwolves.html " So now you are moving the goalposts. No, wolves are "not wild pet dogs". BUT they ARE domesticable and, under an owner who understands what the situation is, can be a "pet" as in domesticated. No, you originally set the goalpost at "domesticable" which does put you in the category of "pet" as in Grizzly Adams. You quoted out of context. Paralith said: My post was elaborating on the differences between a first generation domesticated wolf and dogs. No, that wasn't the issue. INow made a post that a wolf raised by humans would not be as aggressive as a wild wolf, since aggressiveness is partly the result of training. You responded that wolves were not "domesticable". Which is obviously false. Having been caught at that, you are now trying to move the goalposts to whether wolves made "good pets" as in modern dogs.

I would submit that the PBMCs are circulating undifferentiated stem cells. It is known that hematopoietic stem cells circulate. I can't find any reference to "PBMC, de-differentiate" in a PubMed search. Do you have the peer-reviewed article describing this "de-differentiation"? In terms of PBMCs and islet cells, I see several articles indicating the PBMCs inhibit differentiation of islet cells, but none where PBMCs can be induced to differentiate to islet cells. Again, any peer-reviewed publications? My experience is that there is a LOT of hype that comes out of companies but we don't see the solid science. Which is why so much of research in companies fails and the companies themselves go under.

We decide "mistaken" in regard to IDEAS. And we decide that based on data and arguments. So, it's not "my perception". Don't take it so personally. Yes, we would. Because many of the diseases are not going to be seen by natural selection. That is, they happen AFTER we have already had children. So cancer, heart disease, osteoporosis, etc, mostly happen after we are 35. However, how about just basic nursing care for children who get sick? Should we not do that? After all, isn't that also "screwing with nature"? Where do you draw the line? And are you willing to have YOUR child or YOURSELF be the victim of a disease if "screwing with nature" would save your life? Well, you have just admitted that you are not holding a rational discussion because you won't accept any data contrary to your view. And no, I don't "blindly" accept. Instead, I observe. Now, do human patients "suffer" when they undergo surgery under anesthetics with pain-relievers afterward? The reason I ask is because the animals I work on -- and yes, I do animal research -- are treated just like human patients. Right now we are doing an bone gap model in rats. The rats are anesthetized with ketamine and acepromazine -- used on human -- and have a plate put on their femur. Which humans have. In fact, we are using the same Kirschner pins, steel surgical wires, bone saws, and sutures that are used on human patients. The bone is rigidly fixed just as it is in humans. The rats receive Buprenex for 3 days post-op -- just as humans do. There is no such thing as "more evolved". You have a misstatement of evolution as a premise of your argument. Since your premise is wrong, the argument is wrong. Now, since we have instances of unintelligent species exploiting other species, why do you think intelligent species would be different? Remember, your argument of "more evolved" is false, so you can't use that. Ethics and "rights" apply to members of our OWN species. Now, if we rigidly applied them to members of all other species, we would starve! After all, we do have to exploit other species as animals. Isn't a farmer's field another type of cage? Would you have use give up farming? Then you advocate eliminating zoos, don't you? Just following the logical consequences of your argument. Of course, that would mean some species going extinct since human expansion has destroyed their habitat and the species exists ONLY in zoos. So you don't have a problem of genocide (eradication of species) as long as we don't do medical testing. Right?

Now you are into my area of expertise: stem cells. 1. It's not "easy" to try to de-differentiate cells. In fact, it seems that differentiation happens only one way: from undifferentiated to differentiated. For instance, skeletal muscle cells are multinucleated and there is no mechanism to get them to break apart into the mononucleated muscle stem cells. Chondrocytes are differentiated and embedded in their matrix. There is no way to get them to de-differentiate, remove the matrix, and start proliferating. It appears that in many cases the DNA is methylated in the process of differentiation, permanently shutting down those genes by that covalent bond. There isn't a way to remove those bonds. 2. There are stem cells in the adult. When you hear the words "stem cells" the first question you have to ask is WHICH stem cell? You are obviously talking about embryonic stem cells or ESCs for short. 3. The people working with ESCs have made the claim that ESCs are the ONLY stem cells capable of differentiating into all the cells in the body. They claim that adult stem cells have limited differentiation capability. There is a building body of work that there are adult stem cells that have the same differentiation capability of ESCs. Verfaillie, Prockop, Miller, and Lucas all have papers out documenting the ability of adult stem cells to differentiate into phenotypes of all 3 dermal lineages. Where did you get this idea? Proton Head, when you have a question regarding medicine, you need to go to PubMed and do a search. In this case, do the search on "stem, cell, epigenetic, differentiation" Below are just 2 papers in the literature: 1: J Cell Mol Med. 2007 Jul-Aug;11(4):602-20. Programming the genome in embryonic and somatic stem cells. Collas P, Noer A, Timoskainen S. Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Department of Biochemistry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, 0317 Oslo, Norway. philippe.collas@medisin.uio.no In opposition to terminally differentiated cells, stem cells can self-renew and give rise to multiple cell types. Embryonic stem cells retain the ability of the inner cell mass of blastocysts to differentiate into all cell types of the body and have acquired in culture unlimited self-renewal capacity. Somatic stem cells are found in many adult tissues, have an extensive but finite lifespan and can differentiate into a more restricted array of cell types. A growing body of evidence indicates that multi-lineage differentiation ability of stem cells can be defined by the potential for expression of lineage-specification genes. Gene expression, or as emphasized here, potential for gene expression, is largely controlled by epigenetic modifications of DNA and chromatin on genomic regulatory and coding regions. These modifications modulate chromatin organization not only on specific genes but also at the level of the whole nucleus; they can also affect timing of DNA replication. This review highlights how mechanisms by which genes are poised for transcription in undifferentiated stem cells are being uncovered through primarily the mapping of DNA methylation, histone modifications and transcription factor binding throughout the genome. The combinatorial association of epigenetic marks on developmentally regulated and lineage-specifying genes in undifferentiated cells seems to define a pluripotent state. 1: Stem Cells. 2007 Jan;25(1):2-9. Epub 2006 Oct 5. Concise review: epigenetic mechanisms contribute to pluripotency and cell lineage determination of embryonic stem cells. Gan Q, Yoshida T, McDonald OG, Owens GK. Department of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22908, USA. Epigenetic mechanisms, such as histone modifications and DNA methylation, have been shown to play a key role in the regulation of gene transcription. Results of recent studies indicate that a novel "bivalent" chromatin structure marks key developmental genes in embryonic stem cells (ESCs), wherein a number of untranscribed lineage-control genes, such as Sox1, Nkx2-2, Msx1, Irx3, and Pax3, are epigenetically modified with a unique combination of activating and repressive histone modifications that prime them for potential activation (or repression) upon cell lineage induction and differentiation. However, results of these studies also showed that a subset of lineage-control genes, such as Myf5 and Mash1, were not marked by these histone modifications, suggesting that distinct epigenetic mechanisms might exist for lineage-control genes in ESCs. In this review article, we summarize evidence regarding possible mechanisms that control these unique histone modifications at lineage-control gene loci in ESCs and consider their possible contribution to ESC pluripotency. In addition, we propose a novel "histone modification pulsing" model wherein individual pluripotent stem cells within the inner cell mass of blastocysts undergo transient asynchronous histone modifications at these developmental gene loci,thereby conferring differential responsiveness to environmental cues and morphogenic gradients important for cell lineage determination. Finally, we consider how these rapid histone modification exchanges become progressively more stable as ESCs undergo differentiation and maturation into specialized cell lineages.

Yes, but it doesn't answer cases where people are altruistic in situations where they won't be paid back: the soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his comrades, for instance.

As CDarwin noted, the values can be qualitative. For instance, in determining gender the independent variable is the chromosome -- either X or Y. The dependent variables are male and female.

Since hair is essentially a column of dead cells that originate from a stem cell in the hair follicle, it follows that changing the stem cell will change the hair. So, if you changed the stem cell so that it didn't produce pigment, then all the daughter cells -- the hair -- would also be without pigment. The website wants to deliver melanin specifically to those hair follicle stem cells. That way, when the stem cell divides, the daughter cell will also have melanin. As long as there is a steady supply of melanin (apply the liposomes regularly), then the stem cell will always have melanin in the cytoplasm when it divides and makes the daughter cell.

Just to add to Dak's excellent reply, the mutation is inherited by any daughter cells (progeny) of the mutated cells. And yes, the mutation can manifest itself in the affected individual: in cancer. Cancers arise from a single cell that was mutated and many of the mutations are point mutations. Some are not. For instance, one form of leukemia is a translocation of part of the chromosome. It is now thought that cancers are mutated adult stem cells. The progeny of those mutated cells do indeed "manifest itself in the affected individual", don't they?

The "assumed behavior" IS the aether. IOW, the aether exists in the sense that it DOES such and such. If the consequences don't exist, neither does the entity. I addressed the Lorentz contractions. Notice that "assume". It "assumes" a length contraction exactly of the right amount to counter the movement thru the aether! It is an ad hoc hypothesis meant to save the aether from falsification. Ad hoc hypotheses can be either valid or invalid. The ad hoc hypothesis of Neptune to save Newtonian mechanics from falsification by the orbit of Uranus was valid. Why? Because the hypothesis could be tested independent of the theory it was trying to save. That is, testing for the existence of Neptune involved optics, not Newtonian mechanics. The Lorentz contraction has no other effect than to save aether from falsification. That makes it an invalid ad hoc hypothesis. Reference? This is essential to your argument. As far as I can see, they are NOT "mathematically identical". "To explain this null result, George Fitzgerald, an Irish physicist, put forward in 1889 an ad hoc hypothesis that the distance L parallel to the Earth’s motion should be contracted by an amount sufficient to make the two times equal. Independently, Hendrik Lorentz, in Holland, put forward the same hypothesis in 1904, but he based it on the fact that electromagnetic forces between charged particles are sensitive to their motion and cause a minute contraction in the size of moving bodies, just enough to explain the null results of the Michelson-Morley experiment." http://www.sc.doe.gov/Sub/Newsroom/News_Releases/DOE-SC/2005/TIME.htm Now, you may mean that the result -- the "contraction" -- is identical. Notice above that Fitzgerald and Lorentz got the "contraction" by a very different method than SR. "Einstein was aware of the results of the Michelson experiments, and did not accept the explanation of these results by Lorentz in terms of a force, and associated contraction, exerted on objects moving through the aether." http://www.pas.rochester.edu/~dmw/ast102/Lectures/Lect_06b.pdf Lorentz used a force. Einstein didn't. Instead, he simply postulated that the speed of light is the same for all observers no matter the frame of reference. Lorentz did have the speed of light vary, but had the length change. I've seen this before. It's wrong. You don't evaluate theories based on simplicity. We prefer special relativity because it does predict different results AND because testing finds the results that SR predicts, such as clocks being different in different gravitational fields or E = mc^2. No, it doesn't. Entropy has a maximum independent of life. That is, if no life exists, the universe would still reach maximum entropy. Therefore life doesn't increase the overal maximum entropy. In the short term, the overall entropy increases despite life. That is, the entropy of the larger system increases more than life decreases entropy in the smaller system. Life decreases the size of the entropy increase. No, Bombus. Life converts light to heat worse than a rock. The rock converts as much of the light to heat as possible immediately. Life takes some of the light and makes sugar instead of making heat. In the end, both life and the rock end up getting the same increase in entropy. But since efficiency is a function of time, the rock is much more efficient than life. But this is NOT the selection criteria. This is the RESULT of selection, not the criteria. The "criteria" are the requirements of the environment, which can only be met by a subset of designs. Not every design will do the necessary job/criteria. Those individuals that do meet the criteria -- are lucky enough to be born with the correct design -- will have more surviving offspring than those individuals that did not have as good designs. GIGO. There are some incorrect assumptions about evolution here: 1. There is no "pecking order" in evolution. An amoeba is just as "evolved" as a human. Both species have 3.8 billion years of evolution behind them. The amoeba is just as adapted to its environment as humans are to theirs. 2. Brains are NOT the criteria of evolution. EVERY adaptation comes with a cost as well as a benefit. There are no universally good traits. If our brains lead to technology that makes H. sapiens extinct, then the amoeba's "simplicity" would be a better "criteria of evolution". Actually, the 6 legs of insects IS a mutation. It has been documented: 1a. http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature716_fs.html Hox protein mutation and macroevolution of the insect body plan. Ronshaugen M, McGinnis N, McGinnis W. Nature 2002 Feb 21;415(6874):914-7 It's just that 6 legs worked out better for insects in their particular environment. But notice we still have centipedes and millipedes. Evolution and natural selection are a merger of contingency and determinism. You are forgetting contingency and trying to make evolution purely deterministic. Vertebrates ended up with 4 limbs, but that is also a mutation and what was selected for in that particular environment. Notice that whales and dolphins are more efficient without all 4 limbs. Multicellular sort of distributes the tasks in such a way that all parts are able to achieve efficiency while also making the entire bio-unit greater than the sum of the parts, individually. You've got to be kidding, right? Cancer evolve to multicellular? Cancer is NOT a "life form". It is a loss of control within a life form. But no cancer exists independent of the organism it originates in. When the organism dies, so does the cancer. In order to be a lifeform, an entity must be able to exist independently. Calling cancer a "lifeform" is like calling skin a "lifeform".

Larry Niven did a series of science fiction stories exploring the unintended consequences of this policy -- as well as requiring those on death row to be organ donors. Basically, if your life and the quality of your life depends on criminals, it becomes VERY tempting to legislate more and more crimes as deserving the death sentence. In one story, the end result was that too many traffic tickets within a period of time was a capital crime! 1. Did you read my post above where I noted that my research is meant to REDUCE the human suffering of osteoarthritis? I NEED animal testing to do that. 2. Should we really let nature alone? As Mr. Skeptic pointed out, antibiotics are "screwing with nature" in that we deliberately kill bacteria. How about cardiac bypass surgery? That is "screwing with nature" in that we are not letting people die of clogged arteries! 3. In nature, the lives of members of other species are NEVER as valuable as members of your own species. After all, don't lions think that lion lives are more important than wildebeast lives? They kill wildebeasts, don't they? That happens to EVERY other predator. Even the "peaceful" rabbit thinks that rabbit lives are more important than cowslip lives! Rabbits find cowslip quite tasty and eat those plants whenever they find them. Many ant species deliberately keep other species of insects as food! They think that ant lives are more important than the lives of those other species. So, your perception of what nature is and that "life is life" is very mistaken. Finally, did you read that animals used in research are required to be treated "humanely". Basically how we would treat human patients. What is your objection to this?

Where did you get this? In the United States ALL clinical research MUST go through an IRB -- Institutional Review Board. The purpose of the IRB is to safeguard the interests of the test subjects. For a new drug there are 3 phases of human trials: Phase I, II, and III. Phase I is only testing safety. There are few patients enrolled those are the patients that no other treatment has worked. For new cancer drugs, this means people who are terminal and will soon die from their cancer. The patients are monitored extensively for any adverse effects. I don't know of any payments at this stage. If a drug passes Phase I, it moves to Phase II, which tests to see if the drug WORKS. If at all possible, this is a double blind study, where neither the patient or the doctor know whether the patient is receiving the drug or the placebo. Very often Phase II trials are conducted at several different institutions: usually academic hospitals. Again, I don't know of any case where the patient is paid. What usually happens is that the treatment is paid for, since at this stage insurance companies won't sanction the treatment. So the treatment is free for the patient. Phase III is an extensive clinical trial. Again, the treatment is paid for, but the patient doesn't receive any money. Their "payment" is a new treatment that works better than any other treatment out there.

But the data is that Pit Bulls are just like German Shepherds or Rotweilers. Many of them are gently family pets! As I keep saying, the dog on Little Rascals was a pit bull! Check the testimonial at this site: http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/americanpitbull.htm IMO, the NZ politicians just took the easy way out. Rather than deal with the responsible people, just ban the breed. It's a common tactic of politicians. Why do you think I have to spend so much time on IACUC forms for the use of animals in research? Rather than punish the offenders who misuse animals in research, just set up regulations so it "can't happen". Now you said: "They are not especially trained for intelligence. Just aggressive fighting tendency." By your statement, pit bulls are trained for aggressive fighting tendency. What they are NOT trained for is distinguishing between attacking dogs and attacking humans. If they were trained this way, they wouldn't be dangerous! But that takes too much time and energy from people who only want to have fight dogs. Much easier to have just general aggressive fighting training rather than adding discriminating between another dog and a human. Since modern dogs are descended from domesticated wolves, wolves MUST be domesticable. In fact, the website you posted says this explicitly! Nor does it say that wolves cannot make pets, but that the owner has to have experience! "A wolf knocking around, or being knocked around, by human society only rarely finds an adequate owner. These owners are at least fairly knowledgeable, have already been dog owners, are prepared for a wolf, and are conscientious of their obligation. Are you one?" So, DrDNA, you apparently didn't even do your own reading! This article does not say what you say it does. It says that wolves are "domesticable" but that it takes a very special person to do so. Modern dogs have been deliberately selected for thousands of generations (by artificial selection) to deal with humans, so the behavior of modern dogs and modern wild wolves is going to be different. That is a value judgement and is very different from whether it CAN be done. You are saying it SHOULD not be done. Apples and oranges. As you noted, there is at least 10,000 years of evolution between wolves and modern dogs. And dogs have suffered severe artificial selection so that they will "look to humans for guidance". Any of the early domesticated wolves that didn't were killed by their human owners! The issues isn't whether there are differences. Of course there are: those 10,000 years of different evolution. The issue was whether wolves COULD BE domesticated. The answer is "Yes".