lucaspa

I think humans found the chemical reactions that got life from non-life quite a while ago. http://www.theharbinger.org/articles/rel_sci/fox.html If it is this article http://www.bioinfo.de/isb/2004/05/0016/, all I can say is "yawn". Been done. The cells in the above site do all these things, too. AND have an action potential just like a nerve cell! Now, when you say "only God can create life from scratch" you are presuming a particular method by which God works. You are thinking that God has to pick the molecules and specifically assemble a cell. God has to directly manufacture a cell, IOW. However, the chemical reactions in the website I posted can be just as much "God creating life from scratch". As to "playing God" well, we do that all the time. According to Judeo-Christian scripture, we are supposed to do that to the earth. God put us in charge. If you mean: are there going to be possible catastrophic consequences? Yes. But there are catastrophic consequences to all the technology we invent.

WHAT!!?? We were told we were supposed to bring PEACE between Shiites and Sunnis so they could establish a peaceful, united Iraq. This contradicts the first. Why bother to referee if you want them to kill each other? If that is the case, then we should never have been in Iraq to begin with! They already had an "ideology" -- Hussein -- that opposed the ideologies of Khomeini and Qutb. And just what "ideology" do you see emerging? What ideology did we intend to emerge? Whatever it was, we ain't getting it. LOL! Al Qaeda wouldn't even BE in Iraq if we hadn't invaded! Great! We invade a country we didn't have to, start a civil war, and then declare that having 2 of the factions fight each other is a "good" thing. Also, the Irano-Syrian axis would not exist if it were not for us. So we cause something, then declare it is "good" to find evidence of what we caused? The premise here is that it is "cleanable". At least you are admitting we made the crap. However, many of us disagree that it is "cleanable". We screwed up too badly to fix.

There really isn't a global war on "terror". "Terrorism" is a set of tactics, not an ideology or nation state. The USA has used terrorism as tactics from time to time. Like when an American Army officer gave blankets from smallpox victims to Indians in the Ohio Territory around 1800. That would be a "terrorist" attack by the standards of today. Do we have a conflict with people who think Western secular democracy should be destroyed? Yes. But that conflict has been going on for centuries. Anyone old enough to remember the 1970s remembers the Weathermen and other "terrorist" groups. Armygas, you hold this boogeyman up as tho we should be afraid of it. Try a little courage. Can al Quada and any of its fellow-travelers really destroy the USA? NO! They don't have the capability. Yes, they can kill a few individuals, but they can't destory Western civilization. As long as we don't destroy ourselves. One of the primary axioms taught military officers is "keep calm; don't lose your head". Is it tragic that these people kill Americans and Britons? Yes. Is it tragic that the various drug cartels kill people? Yes. Is it tragic that 40,000 Americans per year die in traffic accidents? Yes. But none of those is a "war" and certainly not in the sense that "losing" a battle or 2 will end up with the countries or civilizations overthrown. The "War on Terror" is great for whipping up hysteria and rationalization of some political agendas. But simply because it is now so blatantly used for those ends indicates that it's more a political slogan.

You are mixing evolution and sociology/politics. They are not comparable and it is VERY dangerous to try to mix them. Remember, evolution happens to populations over generations and involves inheritance. You are talking about "change the minds of people", which means you are talking changes WITHIN an individual (not a population) and does not involve our genes or inheritance. So yes, a group that develops a better form of propaganda (how to change people's attitudes) will get their particular political agenda across and "win" in terms of elections and/or political power. The Nazis did that with Goebbels in the 1930s-40s. The Democrats did it in the 1930s with Roosevelt and radio to sell the New Deal. The conservative Republicans did it in the 1990s with Newt Gingerich, Rush Limbaugh, etc. and the use of talk radio. But in terms of evolution, this does not change H. sapiens.

Oh, I never said that! What I said was that some quantum events don't have a cause. I've also said that QM does not match with human common sense. Too bad for our common sense.. Quantum events are regular in groups. Shine any beam of photons on a mirror. ALWAYS 95% are reflected and 5% go thru. That's regular. But, on the level of the individual photon, there is no "cause" that one photon is reflected and another goes thru. Take all the ones that went thru the mirror and shine them thru the same mirror and, once again, 95% are reflected and 5% go thru. No, you did fine. I gave you the role of QM in evolution: contingency. Natural selection makes designs according to the demands of the non-QM parts of physics. QM and its unpredictability gives you the individual difference between species evolved to meet the same design requirements. Natural selection is an algorithm. As such, it applies to ANY system where there is: 1. Variation between individuals. 2. Selection among individuals. 3. Inheritance from the selected individuals to the next "generation". Within the human brain we do these steps: variation between ideas, selection of some idea, keeping the idea to the next "generation" and having new variations on it. I don't know why you are trying to make this so complicated. Are you trying to introduce "direction" and "intelligence" to natural selection? Yeah, it seems so when you say: How many times do we have to say it: natural selection is NOT chance. The selection part is pure determinism. As I said, the basic design of sharks, ichthyosaurs, and dolphins is dictated by the physics: there are only a very few efficient shapes for moving fast thru water AND having an optimal placement of the mouth to catch (and hold) the prey. So the body shape of all 3 is nearly identical. That's the physics. Natural selection in 3 lineages picked those individuals that had that design. The details are due to QM and that you can have minor variations in the basic design -- vertical tailfin vs horizontal, different shapes of dorsal fin, etc -- and still have the same efficiency in the overal function of the design. So, within the limits of the parameters, QM (in the form of "chance" mutations), provides the different details.

Severian, go back and look at the OP. The original idea was that coherence would be maintained until observed by a consciousness. Schroedinger's Cat would remain both dead and alive until someone opened the box! In this case, no one looked and the wave function collapsed anyway, without an observer. If that is the case, then the idea of the necessity of an observer was already refuted. Are you saying that the popular literature was just slow in catching up?

You are welcome. Yes, the concept is fun to play with. Based on the info in the article, I'm not willing to give up on objective reality just yet. IMO, the entanglement is part of objective reality: the particle is entangled or it is not. The particle was always R or L. That the particle stops being entangled and "becomes" either R or L upon observation does not mean, IMO, that we determine reality. We just "determined" which half of the entangled pair the photon was. It's not like the photon was turned into a rabbit!

Not "impossible" at all, Jadey, but "impossible according to the premises that the lives of other animal species are morally equal to our own." What I am saying is that, because we see no moral problem in building dwellings, or farms, or even walking the "moral" said to be true by some vegans and animal-rights people is not valid. You can make a good argument for that. It is a possible problem for any and every species: more individuals are born than the environment can support. It's a basic fact and no less true for humans. It's just that human technology has allowed us to expand what the environment can support faster than the numbers of humans. Eventually that will catch up with us because the environment is finite and our potential population is not.

Because the existence does not happen in objective reality. "Existence" in this sense is defined as having an objective, material existence within the physical universe. Yes. The questioning usually comes at a very low level of consciousness. It doesn't trigger until you encounter something that is contradictory with other perceptions. The common experiences are considered accurate because of the continual testing. They pass the testing. Like a lot of people, you misuse the word "assume". "5 : to take as granted or true " But, when you test something, you conclude: "3 a : to reach as a logically necessary end by reasoning : infer on the basis of evidence " So, I might conclude the dreams were reality. Then again, I may not. Of course, if I did make the conclusion that the dreams were reality, I would be mistaken, wouldn't I? And that brings us back to objective reality: reality has a hard edge to it. There is something "real" out there. The reality in your examples at the beginning of the post is the entity playing the simulation. For instance, take the video game "God of War". Kratos doesn't really exist. The reality is my daughter playing the video game where the simulation of Kratos is. Are you sure you want to go there? You say "a truth .." You didn't specify a category, thus "a truth" is ANY statement that cannot be doubted or disputed. 1. The earth is not flat. Do you care to dispute or doubt that? 2. Proteins are not the hereditary material. 3. The earth is not the center of the solar system. So, three statements that I would like to see you (seriously) doubt and dispute. There are hundreds of thousands/millions of statements like these. Does that mean that science has "THE final answer"? I submit that you have confused knowledge of ANY subject with complete knowledge of every subject. And I don't believe humans will ever find such an answer, unless we become omniscient through science or through whatever lay beyond death. Our current level of intelligence and knowledge certainly doesn't suffice to find such an answer, though, and may never. And what relevance does this have to my question: "Does it mean that science reaches different conclusions about the nature of the universe than religion?" What different conclusions do you think science has reached here? Science looks for the material causes. That says nothing about whether or not there is a "grand cosmic intelligence in the driver's seat", does it? And, if science doesn't even "get involved" in morals or life beyond death, then science can't very well reach different conclusions from religion, can it? So, NO! You should have asked the last question BEFORE you made all your other statements. It doesn't make you look good to have you refute a statement and THEN ask what I mean by it. Let's take the taste of Brussels sprouts. How do they taste to you? Many people tell me that the taste is pleasant, ranging from slightly sweet to salty to bland. To me, Brussels sprouts taste very bitter with a taste I can't describe but causes me to involuntarily throw up. So, put a plate of Brussels sprouts in front of you and me and we won't have the same experience. It won't be "intersubjective". Does that mean I'm wrong? Does it mean that you are wrong? Nope. It just means that the taste of Brussels sprouts is not part of science. Not all people either have "out-of-body" experiences or telepathy. The issue is whether we can find SOMETHING that is a result of those experiences that everyone can experience. Can we all sit across from a telepath and have them tell the idenitity of cards accurately? Can the person with an out of body experience identify an item hidden from the body of both the out-of-bodier and I and then I go find the item? In psychology, the experiences of the patient often is not science because no one else experiences them. What makes psychology part of science is that ANYONE can talk to the patient and 1) get the same responses by the patient and 2) observe the same behavior of the patient. IOW, the experiences of the psychologist are intersubjective. This is what got Sagan in trouble about the nature of science. Sagan defined "Cosmos" as "everything" and then subdefined "everything" as only material objects. This, of course, ruled out deity. And thus made science "atheistic" by artificially setting up the rules so as to rule out an entity (deity) that was not ruled out by the data. If you are doing science, you can't state "nothing can exist outside the univers" as a principle. You must state it as a hypothesis and then do your best to falsify it. If your attempts to falsify fail, then you have supported the hypothesis. Data = experiences. Data: "1 : factual information (as measurements or statistics) used as a basis for reasoning, discussion, or calculation 2 : information output by a sensing device or organ" Your senses qualify as a "sensing device or organ" and what you get from them -- experiences -- is information or data. Remember, Luminal, ALL "evidence", "data", "information", "facts" are personal experience: what we see, hear, touch, taste, smell, or feel emotionally. This is what you started the thread about: "Every piece of information you have ever received, from artwork to mathematical laws, has come from one source: your senses. How reliable are our senses?" Well, we use our senses and the information they bring in to test the hypothesis of whether we were dreaming and thus, whether what we experienced in our dreams was 'real'. And, as you acknowledge, it works!

If this is your argument, then you are overlooking that the assumptions you ascribe to science also apply to religion. So you don't have science with different assumptions than religion. Now, if a person claimed that science has no assumptions, then perhaps your argument would be appropriate. But, if you are faced with the situation where the claim is that science and religion are on equal footing because they each have (different) assumptions, then the argument falls apart. Of course, to say "far fewer" gets you into a contest of adding assumptions and then arguments over whether a statement is an "assumption", "observation", or "conclusion". That seems, to me, to be unprofitable.

I understand the relation of body size and volume. However, this only works in a general sense, not in terms of keeping heat in a very cold environment. The larger the area, the more heat is lost. Period. If it is VERY cold relative to body temperature, then this comes into play: you are losing more heat than you can replace by metabolism. If you are smaller, the amount of heat lost is smaller, therefore the less you have to replace by metabolism. Think of mammals that live in the arctic. Yes, you do have larger mammals, but they still needed to evolve longer fur. Their increased body size isn't enough to provide the necessary heat balance. And we are talking an event that happened overnight, so no time to evolve better insulation. In that situation, smaller animals have an advantage. I was thinking about the insulation of feathers and how small birds stick around in winters. They are even able to be covered by snow because the snow itself then acts as additional insulation -- see igloos. So, small birds with insulation, lower rate of heat loss, and reduced food requirements (because of their small size) are going to be able to survive the impact winter better than larger animals with our without insulation.

This paper says SOC may be correlated with the origin of species, but not in extinction: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1690677 I really can't see how SOC can be "down to" as in the answer to everything within evolutionary biology. Nor can it explain the gradual decline in dino species: they already WERE "organized" as organisms. FYI, here is a rather scathing review of Boulter's book: http://palaeo-electronica.org/2003_2/books/extinc.htm It's plain from deep sea cores that the KT impact did wipe out many species, especially plankton. Destruction of that many species certainly disrupted the ecosystem and that, in turn, caused the extinction of other species. The argument is whether dinos were in decline and would have gone extinct without the KT event. That is very dicey and, ultimately, untestable. Since the meteor DID hit, how can you test an alternate future that never happened? All I can do is note that there was a decline in the number of species and a "minor" extinction event at the end of the Triassic. The suborder Dinosauria came thru that and then re-diversified in the Cretaceous. An alternative hypothesis is that this pattern would have repeated. Again, it too is untestable for the same reasons. It's a fun argument, but since we can never get the data to settle it, I refuse to get too serious about the argument.

Uh, that's the same article I posted, but on the web. If you were looking for "independent" confirmation, you didn't find it. That I would like to see. So far, all the data I've seen says that H. habilis was the first hominid to make stone tools.

That's not what is being said. We've evidently confused you. So, let me see if I can straighten out the confusion. Keep asking until you understand. In Einstein's Relativity, lightspeed is the fastest anything can go. Therefore, all information is limited to lightspeed. If there is a flare on the sun, we won't know about it for 8 minutes since it takes 8 minutes for the photons to get from the sun to us. It is 8 minutes before the effects of the solar flare happen on earth. You simply can't "know" about anything the instant it happens, because the information can't travel faster than light. Now along comes quantum mechanics. You can take 2 photons and polarize them "left" and "right" (L and R for short). But the polarization of the two of them can be entangled such that you don't know which photon is L and which is R. Now separate the photons still without knowing which is which. Send them down different optical wires. Then measure the polarization of one of them. INSTANTLY, at the same time, the other photon, wherever it is, will be the other polarization! Do you see the problem? This has nothing to do with "local time", but rather that the information on the polarization of the photon (say it is L) is "sent" to the other photon faster than a photon could travel the distance. Now, this applies ONLY to quantum particles that are "entangled". This means that they ARE "related" to each other. They have the same time reality. It's just that measuring one photon for the entangled property immediately "tells" the other photon to be the other property. So... you could have an entangled photon in front of you and poof! without you doing anything, the photon is suddenly L. The "reality" of the polarization is determined by an event perhaps millions of light years away, yet it doesn't take millions of years for the information on what the photon "ought" to be to reach it. Did this help?

1. You need to be careful about trying to reduce everything to physics. Yes, physics underlies all existence but there are processes operating that are not the direct result of physics. 2. QM comes into play when you consider the contingency of evolution. Kenneth Miller did this brilliantly in Chapter 6 of Finding Darwin's God; I will try to summarize. Imagine hooking up your computer mouse to a radioactive substance. When the alpha or beta particle is emitted during decay, it is emitted in a particular direction. So hook up the mouse such that you when the decay particle goes in one direction, it is "up" for the mouse; or "left", or "right", or "down". Now the motion of your mouse makes events at the quantum level visible at the macro level. Well, embryonic development in living organisms does the same thing. Many mutations are quantum events, but the process of converting the DNA to a living organism amplifies those changes so that they become visible in the traits of the animals. SELECTION constrains this, because it will unerringly pick traits (designs) that work in particular environments. Let's take streamlining like in a dolphin, because that is a great example. There are only so many basic shapes for a predator moving thru water to have if it is to 1) see, grasp, and eat its prey and 2) move fast enough to catch it. Thus you have sharks, ichthyosaurs, and dolphins all having basically the same streamlined shape. BUT, the details of their shape (shape of dorsal fin, exact proportions, shape of teeth, exact shape of mouth, etc) are determined by QM and the unpredictability of QM events when mutating DNA. This unpredictability is "contingency". Let me throw something out there for you to consider: ALL design is a result of Darwinian (natural) selection. The only difference between human design and natural selection is that a lot of the process for humans occurs inside the human brain. As Going pointed out, natural selection is a two step process: 1. Variation 2. Selection. Selection comes about because there are more individuals born in a generation than the environment can support. Therefore there is competition among the individuals for the available resources. Some win the competition and some lose. Darwin called this the "Struggle for Existence". So, individuals vary. When humans design, ideas vary. Then there is the environmment and the fact that not all individuals (or ideas) can survive. Those individuals with variations (designs) that do best in that particular environment survive -- they are "selected". As I write this I have an environment composed of 1) the idea I want to say, 2) grammar, 3) spelling. I make variations in my head of what I want to say and then select that variation that best fits the environment. I have corrected several typos because these variations did not fit the environment of correct spelling. In human brains, the selecting is pretty much conscious. In nature, there is no consciousness at work (that we can detect) doing the selecting. It is analgous to a tournament and the winner survives and has more kids than the loser.

Oh, I always question a dream after I wake up. Just as I always question what has happened when I've been imbibing mind altering chemicals or when the events are outside the ordinary. LOL! This gets us back to the 2 basic assumptions! I don't know a way to prove I exist or that I am sane. BUT, assuming those are true, the answers to the questions validate the accuracy of the experience. We conclude dreams are imagined. And we reach that conclusion based on data. You didn't answer my questions: "What do you think is the "final answer" science should have doubt over? What "faith" do you think scientists should remember might be misplaced?" It was the use of those words that led me to conclude that you were "saying as much". That you ducked the questions doesn't lead me to change the conclusion. When you say "science is inherently superior to religion", what does that mean? Does it mean that science reaches different conclusions about the nature of the universe than religion? Religion can also based on empiricism and rationality. In fact, the surviving religions are so based because they have survived the empirical and rational scrutiny of people over the generations. (I exempt the new religion of Fundamentalism since its members have avoided self-criticism so far.) I suggest Ian Barbour's Religion and Science; it is considered a classic in discussing the relationship of religion and science. The basic difference between religion and science is not rationality, skepticism, or empiricism, but in the evidence that is acceptable. Science accepts only a small subset of personal experience. "inaccuracy". This is how I would re-phrase your statement: "if my knowledge of perceptions are correct but the information entering them are wrong, then in both cases there is inaccuracy in that information."

My apologies. Looking back, your original claim was that our quantity of meat consumption was unhealthy. I lost sight of that original claim. That claim can be defended, altho not by the means you tried.

If by "axiom" you mean "assumption" or "faith", then yes. The classic examples of this is "Last Tuesdayism" or the movie The Matrix. Last Tuesdayism says that the universe with everything in it, including us and our memories of past times, was all created de novo last Tuesday. Since it was created with the appearance of age, including our memories, we won't be able, by science, to detect this. And that is correct. We can't, by science, refute Last Tuesdayism. It wouldn't be "non-objectivity". Objectivity says there is a real world out there that is independent of you. In this case we still have an objective universe, but you are not getting an accurate picture of it. The key here is "believe" it. The Matrix is another classic way to get around intersubjectivity (identical experience in similar situations). EVERYONE is fed the same hallucination. What you need to do is recognize that we all share these certain basic assumptions and work within them. Unless and until we have reason to challenge them, we continue to work within them. Science also has 5 basic assumptions about the nature of the physical universe: rationality, accessibility, unity, contingency, and objectivity. These assumptions are necessary for us to do science. The rub here is that other forms of knowing -- such as religion and philosophy -- also share the same assumptions. Sometimes, when people feel threatened by particular findings of science, they attempt to discredit the scientific findings by challenging the assumptions. This ultimately fails because the people are accepting the same assumptions as true. Discarding them only for science becomes the fallacy of Special Pleading. Tom, even if science is what we observe, we have to have faith that we are sane in order for our observations to be accurate and reliable. However, science is not concerned with describing a known shared illusion, is it? No. Underneath it all we have the assumption (faith) that there is really a real universe to be observed.

Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. Luminal, EVERY search for truth: science, religion, philosophy, etc. share 2 basic assumptions: 1. I exist. 2. I am sane. This is the assumption you are referring to when you say that information comes from our senses. We must assume we are sane in order to trust our senses. Every piece of information you have ever received, from artwork to mathematical laws, has come from one source: your senses. 1. Our senses are generally reliable. 2. We do NOT always believe the unreliable information. For instance, I have questioned several times what is happening while I am dreaming. Even to the point I wake myself up. And I certainly question it after I wake up! Science minimizes the possible unreliability of personal experience (our senses) by only accepting those experiences that are the same for everyone under approximately the same conditions. Does it confer certainty? NO! Which is one reason why science is tentative. You have heard that, haven't you? However, it does give greater reliability. It becomes progressively unlikely that EVERYONE will be under the same hallucination, dream, pschoactive drug, etc. Not conceptually impossible, but unlikely. What do you think is the "final answer" science should have doubt over? What "faith" do you think scientists should remember might be misplaced? I will remind you right now: science is NOT atheism! Science is NOT a worldview! From the paragraph above, it appears that you mistakenly think so. For instance, I am a scientist and a theist. No problem or conflict.

Thank you. Here is a reference on cognitive thinking in crows/ravens: 1. N Williams, Evolutionary psychologists look for roots of cognition. Science 275 (3 Jan): 29-30, 1997. I looked in the Wiki reference list and this might be a reference for tool use in the kea: Gajdon, G.K., Fijn, N., Huber, L.(2006) Limited spread of innovation in a wild parrot, the kea (Nestor notabilis). Animal Cognition, 9, 173-181. Never mind. I found the abstract at this page: http://www.springerlink.com/content/h10hg5138v4ll234/ This video might have it: ^ a b Kea - Mountain Parrot, NHNZ. (1 hour documentary) {the link is at the Wiki page). Since you are more interested than I, you might have more desire to sit thru the 1 hour video.

Thank you. It's nice, isn't it, that PNAS makes a lot of papers available for free. Well, sometimes I lose track of where I read/saw something, too. Keep looking for the reference to belugas. If you come across it, then you can post it here.

Yeah, that's my take. People seem to be making the leap "settlement" = agriculture. I figure H. erectus was smart enough to build primitive shelter. After all, he is supposed to have been smart enough to build boats! 4. R Kunzig, Erectus afloat. Discover 20: 80, Jann. 1999. Data indicate that H. erectus used boats to get to Indonesia 800,000 years ago. So, if they find data that H. erectus discovered and practiced agriculture 400,000 years ago, then I will be excited.

Actually, this doesn't contradict that H. erectus was a hunter-gatherer. Instead, the article simply states that conditions were so fertile there that they could hunt/gather the year round and not have to move. I think there are similar situations in New Guinea and the Philippines. I don't see how it changes much, really. What is being talked about is a group of 40-50 at the most at the site. This is about the same size as postulated for the extended family/tribe in standard thinking. Even moving around, the tribe is still together all the time, as it would be if settled in one place. So all the social interactions that shaped our evolution are present whether moving or settled. It looks like a storm in a teacup to me.

I have a bit of trouble with this, for a couple of reasons: 1. I'm not sure some dinos were not completely warm-blooded. 2. Dinos thrived in Antarctica when it was at the south pole. True, it was warmer than today so that it was more like the Arctic (with warm summers), but apparently still went thru some pretty cold winters.

I tend to favor Bombus' answer. I think it would be a matter of the amount of food needed per animal combined with ability to withstand the cold of the winter. Mammals, turtles, and some reptiles burrow, thus insulating themselves against the winter. The feathered dinos were 1) larger and 2) carnivores. So they were more susceptible to the cold and their food supply died. As Bombus noted, many birds eat seeds or carrion. Even if the plants died, the seeds would still be available. The smaller birds would not need so much food and would have less body area to lose heat. Remember that several genera of birds also went extinct at the K-T boundary. BTW, birds are descended from dinos, but the class Aves was well established by the time the K-T event occurred. I have not seen a paper discussing the reasons the birds survived. Not surprising, since there is still debate as to the exact reason the dinos went extinct. Data indicates that the number of dino species was in a steep decline for at least 10 million years prior to the meteor impact. Robert Bakker, for one, doesn't think the meteor was the primary cause of dino extinction, but merely provided the icing on the cake. His position is controversial, but respected.