lucaspa

No. Science is a limited form of knowing. As such, there are some things that science can neither investigate nor explain. Ethics is one. Science is trying to explain why we view some choices as ethical thru evolutionary psychology, but this cannot explain all ethics. "First, science is a limited way of knowing, in which practitioners attempt to explain the natural world using natural explanations. By definition, science cannot consider supernatural explanations: if there is an omnipotent deity, there is no way that a scientist can exclude or include it in a research design. This is especially clear in experimental research: an omnipotent deity cannot be "controlled" (as one wag commented, "you can't put God in a test tube, or keep him out of one.") [From personal experience, I agree totally with the wag.] So by definition, if an individual is attempting to explain some aspect of the natural world using science, he or she must act as if there were no supernatural forces operating on it. I think this methodological materialism is well understood by evolutionists. But by excluding the supernatural from our scientific turf, we also are eliminating the possibility of proclaiming, via the epistemology of science, that there is no supernatural. One may come to a philosophical conclusion that there is no God, and even base this philosophical conclusion on one's understanding of science, but it is ultimately a philosophical conclusion, not a scientific one. If science is limited to explaining the natural world using natural causes, and thus cannot admit supernatural explanations , so also is science self-limited in another way: it is unable to reject the possibility of the supernatural. Scientists, like other teachers, must be aware of the difference between methodological and philosophical materialism and not treat them as conjoined twins. They are logically and practically decoupled." Eugenie C Scott, chapter "Creationism, Ideology, and Science" in The Flight from Science and Reason edited by Paul R. Gross, Norman Levitt, and Martin W. Lewis, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol 775, 1996. pg 518-519. Dr. Scott is head of the National Science Education Center, which has the primary goal of combating the teaching of creationism in schools. "Science is a discipline, and disciplines are exacting. All maintain rules of conduct and self-policing. All gain strength, respect, and acceptance by working honorably within their bounds and knowing when transgression upon other realms counts as hubris or folly. Science, as a discipline, tries to understand the factual state of nature and to explain and coordinate these data into general theories. Science teaches us many wonderful and disturbing things - facts that need weighing when we try to develop standards of conduct and ponder the great questions of morals and aesthetics. But science cannot answer these questions alone and cannot dictate social policy. Scientists have power by virtue of the respect commanded by the discipline. We may therefore be sorely tempted to misuse that power in furthering a personal prejudice or social goal-why not provide that extra oomph by extending the umbrella of science over a personal preference in ethics or politics? But we cannot, lest we lose the very respect hat tempted us in the first place. If this plea sounds like the conservative and pessimistic retrenching of a man on the verge of middle age, I reply that I advocate this care and restraint in order to demonstrate the enormous power of science. We live with poets and politicians, preachers and philosophers. All have their ways of knowing, and all are valid in their proper domains. The world is too complex and interesting for one way to hold all the answers. Besides, high falutin morality aside, if we continue to overextend the boundaries of science, folks like Bryan will nail us properly for their own insidious ends. We should give the last word to Vernon Kellogg, the great teacher who understood the principle of strength in limits, and who listened with horror to the ugliest misuses of Darwinism. Kellogg properly taught in his textbook (with David Starr Jordan) that Darwinism cannot provide moral answers: "Some men who call themselves pessimists because they cannot read good into the operations of nature forget that they cannot read evil. In morals the law of competition no more justifies personal, official, or national selfishness or brutality than the law of gravitation justifies the shooting of a bird." Stephen Jay Gould in the essay "William Jennings Bryan's last campaign" in Bully for Brontosaurus, 1991, pp. 429-430. Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem led to one of my favorite lines: "If a 'religion' is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel has taught us that, not only is mathematics a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one." J.D. Barrow in Between Inner Space and Outer Space, Oxford University Press, 1999, p 88.

1. The premise is wrong. Jews and Muslims got along for centuries prior to 1948. The problem was forcing the Arabs to accept a Jewish nation! No one asked the Arabs living there if they wanted a Jewish state. Also, at least 25% of the Palestinians are Christians. Christians and Jews live together in peace in many nations of the world. 2. There isn't a political conflict there. There is intolerance of homosexuals by some heterosexuals. Particularly heterosexuals who belong to the religion of Fundamentalism -- which is separate from Christianity (despite the claims to the contrary by Fundamentalists). The USA is founded on tolerance and that is the ideal. Therefore tolerating homosexuality between consenting adults is necessary if we are to live up to the foundational ideals of America. If you do the second you have just as much intolerance and denial of liberty as you do if you make heterosexuality the state sexual orientation. It's a matter of liberty, now. This is different. It's a matter of ethics and personal freedom. Pedophilia involves sexual activity with MINORS. Children too young to make informed decisions about sex. In fact, pedophilia is most often about sex with children even before they reach puberty and can engage in sex. So, pedophilia is about exploitation of one group -- children -- by another group -- pedophiles. And without the consent of the children. Pedophilia is not about shared sexual pleasure, but about pleasure ONLY for the pedophile. It is rape. As such, there is no justification for it or for tolerating it. No more than there is tolerance for sadists who want to capture and whip people who do not consent. That is like saying "let's give slaveowners their own country where they can do whatever they like." It's about personal freedom and liberty. Because you have apples and oranges. Pedophilia is physical assault. Reading the Torah is not. This isn't about "physical discomfort", but about the rights of the individual. Part of the rights is freedom of religion. Another part is freedom from assault, including sexual assault. That some people have "discomfort" about physical assault simply shows that they have a good ethical sense. That some have "discomfort" about people believing differently about deity than they do shows that they have intolerance.

How about the cruelty and habitat destruction that goes with agriculture? How many animals are killed as the plow goes thru the field each spring? How many animals starved to death as their habitat was destroyed to make the farm? Vegetarianism also ends up killing animals, it's just that it is second hand, not direct. So they tend to pretend it doesn't exist.

Actually, Marilyn, we mostly use animals that are specifically bred for use in research! All mice, rats, dogs, rabbits, cats, and pigs used in research today come from companies who do nothing but breed these animals so that they can be used in research. It is no longer permissable to use stray dogs and cats that are going to be killed by animal shelters. Those animals instead are killed -- usually by placing them in a hypobaric chamber. Orthopedics is starting to use goats and sheep as an intermediate between rodents and humans and these are basically farm animals that, instead of being killed due to old age or food, are used instead in research. There are very few institutions set up to use large animals such as horses or cows as research animals. I think the number is less than 10 in the entire USA. Therefore the number of such animals used per year is probably less than 100.

IMO, designer babies is a stupid idea. This presumes several fallacies about evolution. 1) that some traits are ALWAYS good. 2) that we are smarter than natural selection. Both of these are very, very wrong. Traits are "good" or "bad" only in relation to a particular environment. Every trait has a benefit and a cost. Natural selection is always sifting thru the cost/benefit ratio. As someone also noted, designing means eliminating some alleles from the population. This decreases genetic diversity and makes the population less able to respond to environmental changes. Instead of enhancing human survival, it actually reduces it. Also, humans use natural selection when the design problem is too tough for them. This means that natural selection is much, much smarter than we are. Trying to take over from natural selection, then, is a very bad idea.

No, if the pressure were off then the Japanese could say 1) that the market for whale meat had collapsed, 2) admit that whaling was not profitable, or 3) say that due to government financial restraints unrelated to whaling, the government had to stop the subsidies, 4) eventually say that it was their idea to save the whales. Lots of ways here the Japanese government could stop and save face. Japan has been having economic problems. And ANY government likes to be seen as controlling wasteful spending. I'm also sure there are many Japanese politicians with their favorite projects that would be more than happy to see the tax money spent on subsidizing whaling to to their pet projects instead. The present tactics aren't working. Time to remember the mission and try something new. I think SkepticLance has come up with a good description of the motivation of Greenpeace. They are into "reputation" and "face" just as much, if not more, than the Japanese. BUT, their mission is supposed to be saving the whales. I can, and do, seriously fault them for sacrificing the mission to their own pride.

I am using "pride" as shorthand. The emotion is much more complicated than simple pride. It's a cultural thing that is sometimes called "saving face". It is tied into ego, reputation, and the self-worth of the individual. You can see the same thing in Greenpeace. The paid members of Greenpeace have tied their sense of self-worth to "winning" their environmental goals and getting credit for winning them. That last is -- getting credit -- is very important. It's about winning and losing. The Japanese don't want to be seen as "losing" and "giving in" to Greenpeace. As you noted, Greenpeace really wants to get the credit and be seen as "forcing" the Japanese to their will: "but if Greenpeace just lets the Japanese whale, wont that give greenpeace a bad reputtatrion?" So, the Japanese don't want a "bad reputation" and neither does Greenpeace. It's no longer about the whales, but about the egos and reputations of both people. Since Greenpeace says it is about the whales, then they should be the ones to put their egos and reputation on hold to accomplish the mission.

Just because you can make a moral argument against something doesn't mean the people involved will agree with you. The entire world thought the Holocaust was wrong, but the Nazi leadership didn't agree. Greenpeace isn't to be trusted here. As you noted in a later post: "but if Greenpeace just lets the Japanese whale, wont that give greenpeace a bad reputtatrion?" Greenpeace also has pride and is worried about its reputation. So of course they are going to say that the Japanese won't stop on their own. but they aren't selling enough to even break even, much less make a profit! Very soon, without the pride motive, the Japanese government is going to find it impossible to justify spending taxpayer money to keep the whaling going. C'mon, do a bit of thinking here. If the whales go extinct, THAT will stop them. But yes, economics will also stop them. IF you take the pride and confrontation out of the equation so that economics will dominate. Pride. Publicity. Making it look like it was the fault of the Japanese. It's the same situation when Hitler faked a Polish attack on Germany in 1939. It provided a rationalization.

I see I'm still not going to get a "thank you" nor admission of your incivility. Now, I asked you -- even using "please" -- not to use the word "proved". It's not "fluff". It's a very important attribute of science. Science does not, strictly speaking, "prove". It can't by either induction or deduction. If you look at any serious discussion of the nature of science, you find it emphasized as an essential characteristic that science is always tentative. Saying something is "proved" is not tentative. How can you not have heard of the most extensive database of scientific publications around? BTW, what kind of lab do you work in that you capitalize it as "Lab"?

That's beside the point. In terms of evolution, the goal is to have children. You get no evolutionary advantage by having them with multiple mates or single mates. Now, there are always exceptions that would deny you children. Obviously if your mate has sex with other people, then there is the possibility that the kids will have another parent. BUT, that is possible even when you have multiple mates. After all, they probably ALSO have multiple mates, which means that they are "cheating" on you! I'm not proposing "total knowledge". That's a different poster. I'm proposing "adequate" knowledge. However, how about the structure of DNA? Don't we know everything about the triple helix? Yes, it can. BUT, we ask some questions and see what knowledge we have of the answers. For instance, we can ask:1. How many parameters are involved in the phenomenon? 2. What are the short term consequences? 3. What are the long term consequences? If the answer to any of these is "I have no idea whatsoever", then we don't have adequate knowledge to begin using the knowledge. 1. "shrinks" are psychiatrists. Which you say is part of science! "But since it is still an “embryonic” knowledge it cannot be applied socially like psychiatrists do" 2. This isn't true. Remember, much of our behavior is NOT directly a result of evolution. In fact, nature gives us "predispositions" to behavior, but not individual acts. I think you need to study psychology some more. Although those of us in the "hard" sciences (like me with biochemistry) often make fun of psychologists, psychology is a recognized part of science. Two problems:1. Evolutionary psychology is NOT "solid". It is a hypothesis to explain some behaviors, such as altruism. It makes sense as a hypothesis, BUT, we don't have the genes and alleles of genes to show that the explanation is actually correct. 2. Much of psychology has a mathematical basis, which makes it more "solid" that much of evolutionary psychology. It seems that you have a bias against psychology. You need to tell us what you consider "fortune-teller kind of psychology". You need to be more specific. And they were wrong! That's the elephant in the room. You want to use evolutionary psychology even tho we know we have a lot LESS knowledge about it than they did about atomic reactions. Remember my list of questions above? The one "what are the long term consequences?" Their answer was "we have no idea whatsoever". That should have caused them to stop until they had some data. Oh no, I grasp that. There is always going to be risk and there are going to be mistakes by individuals in using technology -- such as the knife slipping or having a fire get out of control. But what you are failing to grasp is that we must have 1) a fairly good grasp of the knowledge in order to start using it as technology. In the case of evolutionary psychology -- to "start messing with people's minds" to use your term. We don't in the case of EP. We are not even sure it is REAL at this point, much less have any solid data on which behaviors are due to evolution. 2) a good grasp of the consequences of using the knowledge. Again, with EP we haven't even studied possible consequences. And that's an individual failure of the technology -- a mistake. You don't seem to grasp the difference between an individual mistake and not knowing what the consequences of the technology will be. Bare assertion. We need data on how it was "immensely helpful" and data on whether EP was actuallly ACCURATE. Irrelevant. You are still applying Dawkins' "selfish gene" theory without looking to see whether it is valid or not. It is not. Not when your other statements are in error. And saying that genes "try to spread themselves thru the population" is in error whether you are using metaphor or the correct language. Instead, take the time in a discussion about evolutionary biology to use the correct terminology. Actually, they don't. They use the correct terminology or at least state the metaphor up front so that everyone knows that they are using it. 1. Because it is the individual that must compete in the struggle for existence, not the genes.2. Most traits are polygenic, which means that you need several genes to make the trait. Thus, it is the trait that is the unit of selection. Wrong terminology. You mean "alleles". The forms of genes. Let me have Ernst Mayr explain it. You should read this book. "Much confusion about this problem can be avoided by considering two separate aspects of the question: 'selection of' and 'selection for'. Let us illustrate this with the sickle cell gene. For the question 'selection of' the answer is the individual who either does or does not carry the sickle cell gene. In a malalrial region the answer to 'selection for' is the sickle cell gene, owing to the protection it gives to its heterogenous carriers. When one makes the distinction between the two questions, it becomes quite clear that a gene as such can never be the object of selection. It is only part of a geneotype, whereas the phenotypes of the individual as a whole (based upon the genotype) is the actual object of selection (Mayr 1997). ... "The reductionist [Dawkins'] thesis that the gene is the object of selection is also invalid for another reason. It is based on the assumption that each gene acts independently of all other genes when making its contribution of genes to the properties of the phenotype. If this were true, the total contribution of genes to the making of the phenotype would be accounted for by the addition of the action of all individual genes. This assumption is referred to as teh 'additive gene action' assumption. Indeed, some genes, perhaps even many genes, seem to act in such a direct and independent manner. If you are a male with the hemophiliac gene, you will be a bleeder. Many other genes, however, interact with each other. Gene B may enhance or reduce the effects of gene A. Or else the effects of gene A will not occur unless gene B is also present. Such interactions among genes are calle epistatic interactions." Ernst Mayr What Evolution Is, pgs 126-127 It's still wrong. See above. Notice you changed the terms here. As Mayr said, above you had genes as the "unit of selection". Now you are talking "select for" as in "selecting [for] genes". So go back and read Mayr about the difference of "selection of" and "selection for". And yes, terminology is important. This isn't just a semantic game we are playing. There are biological consequences of the different terminology, and the consequences of some of the terminologies -- such as genes are the unit OF selection -- are false. Immortal, when dealing with evolution or society, there is rarely an "always". Intelligence is not "always" advantageous. In fact, evolution emphasizes that what is a good trait in one environment will be a bad trait in a different environment. As Paralith stated, we are talking about this society, where birth control is prevalent. Thus, having multiple partners will not likely result in children, because the partners will be practicing birth control. You are more likely to have children if you have one partner that agrees to have children and thus goes off birth control. (Notice that many forms of birth control are designed to work on individual sexual encounters, so that the mate can "cheat" in having sex but still use birth control during that sex.) Change the society (environment) and the successful reproductive strategy will change.

Yes, BUT that doesn't mean cancer. Cancer is a DISEASE, not just "mutation". Looking at my previous post, in order to be a disease, the mutation(s) have to give the cell the ability to do all the activities in the list. That is very unlikely, which is why cancers are usually more prevalent later in life: more chances. However, it is not inevitable that mutation(s) will arise giving the cell ALL those abilities. All of us generate abnormal somatic cells thruout life. But they don't become cancer because they are killed, either by apoptosis or the immune system, before they can replicate and acquire the other attributes to be cancer.

Not quite. Everyone gets mutations, but getting cancer is also a function of several other processes for the mutated cell: 1. It does not undergo apoptosis. 2. It avoids being killed by NK cells of the immune system. 3. The mutations provide uncontrolled mitosis 4. It finds a way to promote angiogenesis. 5. The cells find a way to invade other tissues. Unless the mutated cell does ALL of these, it won't be cancer. So not everyone will get cancer, because not everyone will have cells that are able to do all of these.

Greenpeace originally did good work in stopping whaling. However, the point is that Greenpeace has failed to take into account Japanese psychology. To the Japanese, saving face is very important. Greenpeace isn't letting the Japanese do that. So it is a legitimate point to question whether Greenpeace here is really concerned about the whales or concerned about appearing to be the "winner" in a confrontation with Japan? IOW, has Greenpeace sacrificed the whales to their own human pride? Yes. If Greenpeace would back off, the economics of the situation -- outlined by Sayonara-- would stop the whaling within 5 years. And some time is going to be needed for the whalers to find new careers. This slowdown, which the Japanese could submit was their idea, would accomplish the goal. Of course, Greenpeace wouldn't get the credit. "Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship while attempting to save his equipment." If Pereira would have abandoned his things, he wouldn't have drowned. It sounds like the DGSE tried to accomplish their mission without loss of life. They can't be held totally responsible because Pereira decided to go for a Darwin Award. You are concerned about the life of ONE man. "In the 1980s, the direction of military applications of the Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique was developing new nuclear warheads for the new M4 SLBM, which were tested in underground explosions in the French Polynesian atoll of Moruroa." France was concerned about the lives of tens of millions and having a credible nuclear deterrent. I'd say Greenpeace should have been more concerned with saving human lives that protesting a very minor contamination of the environment.

OK, but WHY is it wrong? Look at the ethics more carefully. 1. There is the deception that whaling is scientific research but is really for hunting. That is lying and is immmoral within human society. 2. As Sayonara posted, the whaling isn't for food anymore. a. Whale meat isn't necessary for meat in the Japanese diet (it is, you'll note, in Inuit diet). b. The Japanese don't even eat the whale meat they already have, much less the new meat being harvested. Therefore the moral justification of killing whales -- for food -- is invalid. c. There are no other essential products to be gained from whales. All other products that were once obtained by whales are more economically obtained -- and are better products -- by other means. So this is wrong WITHIN human morals without involving anything like "animal rights".

Thank you, but I wasn't trying to exercise it there. I was simply generalizing the criteria of "projection" to avoid "special pleading". Fattyjwoods was making a criteria to justify not using animal experiments: projecting human feelings and moral behavior onto animals. That's very specific, but if a criteria is valid it can't just apply to the one particular set of circumstances you made it for. The criteria must be more general and apply to similar circumstances. So, this criteria says, in general, that behavior and feelings within human species tells us how other species feel and what is moral for that other species. IOW, we can "project" the moral behavior of one species to give moral behavior in another species. But there is no reason to say this goes only from humans TO other species. That would be special pleading. In order to be a general criteria, it must also go from other species to humans. What is "right" for their species must also be moral behavior for humans. But that doesn't work. My example shows the absurdity of using that criteria as a general criteria. Therefore Fattyjwoods is using the argument of "special pleading", which is invalid. Looked at another way, it is making the criteria a hypothesis and then testing it. In this case, the hypothesis failed testing.

But the point is that they DON'T always struggle and squeak! They do so the first couple of times, but that may be due to the stress of being handled, not the pain of the needle. Many years ago I witnessed an experiment where the rats were being injected in the abdomen every day for several months. After the first 3-4 days, I saw the researcher simply reach into the cage and pick the rats up by the scruff of their necks. No gloves, just his bare hand. The rats just hung there passively while the researcher used his other hand to stick a long 20 guage needle into their abdomen and inject the material. No squirming, no squeaks, NOTHING. If anything, they acted "bored". So, were they feeling pain or were they suffering? Not from any outward sign. This gets to another question: what is important enough to humans that we can justify experimenting on animals? Many people say that cosmetics are important because people do not have to wear cosmetics. However, if you accept the premise that humans are going to wear cosmetics and buy them, then the manufacturer has a responsibility to test to see whether those products are irritating or toxic to the human. And then you have animal testing.

That's not the same. If you notice, posters (including you) were also looking at emotional pain, not just physical. You can't extrapolate emotional pain at all. And it's really difficult to extrapolate physical pain. For instance, when we do surgery on rats we create a huge incision and make a bone gap. We do give analgesics for the first 3 days, but I've talked to people who did these operations first about 20 years ago, when analgesics were not required. The rats never gave any overt sign of pain. A human would be writhing in agony. The rats gave no sign that they felt any pain at all. All animal experiments are required to include appropriate pain-killing medication unless there is an overriding scientific reason not to. As you said: So, if the experiments had to be conducted without pain medication, you would approve, right? If you are making a new rat poison, don't you need to test it to really see if it kills rats? Also don't you need to test to see if it will kill the family cat or dog? Do you realize that EVERY animal experiment has to be approved by an Institutional Animal Use and Care Committee? This is made up of 5-8 scientists at the institution, at least one veterinarian, at least 1 non-scientist from the institution, and at least 2 non-scientists from outside the institution. The purpose of the committee is to ensure "humane" treatment of the animals and that none of the experiments are "stupid" so that animal lives are not wasted.

You didn't ask a question. You made two statements: "Bite Me the reason I asked is that I have 100g of the stuff in the Lab, and it`s a Known Carcinogen, and there`s plenty proof of that! " So you consider your post as civil? Since when is "bite me" a civil response? And I suppose you consider the stick your tongue out smiley to be civil. Now, when you did post your original question, I did answer civilly. I even went and found the answer for you! But did I even get a thank you in return? No. I would expect a little civility from you, but I know I'll never get it. You are obviously completely oblivious to your incivility. Of course, this is all a distraction from my post correcting you on how science works and my observation that you apparently don't know enough to do a simple PubMed search. Your incompetence in both areas doesn't change by trying to divert the subject to my behavior.

Yes. Proteins are degraded and the fragments processed to the MHC-I. But that happens to ALL proteins in the cell -- the "normal" ones produced by the cell and the "foreign" ones produced by the virus. The body has gotten used to the "normal" fragments and recognizes those as "self". The virus proteins are not self. But when a gene is mutated and starts producing an altered protein, that is pretty much the same as having a foreign protein produced by a virus, isn't it? So a single cancer cell is going to present "foreign" protein fragments on its MHC-I and the immune system will recognize this as an abnormal cell for phagocytosis/apoptosis. And indeed, the data indicates that the body does in individual cancer cells all the time. We never know that these cells exist because our body kills them before they can proliferate. The cancers that present as disease are those that have evaded this system so that they can reproduce to make tens of millions of cells.

Yes, I have the right person here. You said "The same applies to human behaviour determined partially by genes. You don’t need to know everything in order to make use of this knowledge. " When you only have a little knowledge, then it becomes VERY easy to use knowledge "carelessly". Simply because you don't understand the situation to be aware of the consequences. You say you didn't say "should be used carelessly". Right, you didn't say that. But by advocating using knowledge when you only have a little bit of it, you increase the risks to the point that you practically guarantee that the knowledge use will be careless -- not from intent, but from ignorance. As you said: Can't you see that, by using knowledge before you have gained a lot in the area, that you are having the danger of "lack of knowledge". That's what happened to the atomic bomb experiments. They had knowledge of the blast and thermal effects of the bombs. BUT, they had "lack of knowledge" about the radiation. And that lack meant danger. Applying knowledge of "human behavior determined by genes" before we have enough knowledge about how much and which human behavior is determined by genes means danger. Because of the LACK of knowledge. You guys have been reading too much Dawkins. And you are applying too much sentience to genes -- actually, alleles of genes. Alleles do not "try" anything. Alleles perpetuating and spreading thru the population is the RESULT of natural selection and inheritance. Also, alleles are NOT the unit of selection. The INDIVIDUAL is. So you don't select alleles, you select individuals with traits that do better in the struggle for existence. Look at artificial selection by human animal breeders: they don't ever select for genes, they select for traits. Most traits are the product of multiple genes and thus what is being selected are NOT individual alleles, but a package of alleles. I don't know of any case of a new species arising in one generation. Even in cases polyploidy, it takes several generations before the polyploidy is fixed. Even in cases of hybridization, speciation takes several generations as the genome settles down. Please post a peer-reviewed scientific paper documenting speciation in a single generation. This isn't what it seems. Yes, 10% of our genome consists of ALU repeats, BUT these don't affect expressed genes. Some of our genes seem to be "oncogenes" and these MAY have viral origins, but again this does not result in a reproductive isolation within a generation. You must remember that evolution applies to POPULATIONS and species are defined as populations that do not interbreed. So if you have saltation of an individual going polyploidy, who is that individual going to mate with? I said quantum splitting, not quantum mechanics. Different theories. But thank you for agreeing that there is no hard and fast line between philosophy and science. Then state it as tentative based upon your personal and limited observations, not as "fact". I disagree. And the testing and discarding has happened within the discipline of philosophy, too. Philosophy is littered with discarded theories. Science is not the only discipline that tests hypotheses. That is because the hypothetico-deductive method is not limited to science. It can be used in any situation where people agree on what the "data" is. Uh, yes they do. First, there are 5 basic assumptions about the universe that are necessary to do science in the first place. Science takes them as "certainties". Second, theories are ALWAYS tested in bundles. And we assume that all the theories in the bundle are true and certain. Sorry, but not often. What you have here is the view of science taught in grade school. But remember, grade school teaches simplified concepts. For instance, the view of chemical bonds taught in grade school is not the real thing. Formulating hypotheses (conjectures) is process of imagination and many hypotheses have NO basis in previous knowledge. As Karl Popper noted: "I thought that scientific theories were not the digest of observations, but that they were inventions -- conjectures boldly put forward for trial, to be eliminated if they clashed with observations, with observations which were rarely accidental but as a rule undertaken with the definite intention of testing a theory by obtaining, if possible, a decisive refutation." Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations, 1963 p 38. And, lest you think that Popper missed the mark: "the experimental results may square with the hypothesis, or they may be inconsistent with it. ... but no matter how often the hypothesis is confirmed -- no matter how many apples fall downward instead of upwards --the hypothesis embodying the Newtonian gravitational scheme cannot be said to have been *proved to be true*. Any hypothesis is still sub judice and may conceivably be supplanted by a different hypothesis later on. ...To my mind the great strength of Karl Popper's conception of the scientific process is that it is realistic -- it gives a pretty fair picture of what actually goes on in real-life laboratories." "The Threat and the Glory", by P.B. Medawar (Nobel Prize winner in medicine), HarperCollins, New York, 1990 (original publication 1959). pp 96-101. To the extent he was able, yes. BTW, Aristotle was supposedly doing science here, not philosophy. After all, saying that all the objects in the world are made of combination of air, water, fire, and earth is fundamentally no different than saying all the objects of the world are made of a combinations of neutrons, protons, and electrons! And that is science, right? So your supposed criticism of philosophy doesn't work, because your example is science, not philosophy. 1. That wasn't an "assumption", but a conclusion.2. Marx said he was doing science, not philosophy. 3. Yes, he did check by looking at historical examples -- data. Marx's problem was that ANY and EVERY historical example could be explained by his theory. There was no way to falsify his theory. Popper was working partly because of Marx (and Freud's) scientific theories. Popper objected to calling these "science" because they explained even contradictory pieces of data. So? The abstract idea is NOT the physical brain, is it? Einstein's thought experiments --abstract ideas -- were not Einstein's brain, were they? Once stated, abstract ideas take on an existence independent of the person or people who advocate them. This has been explored with the theory of "memes". You can still test the validity of abstract ideas by looking at the consequences of those ideas. If you find consequences contrary to those expected by the idea, then the idea is false. Basic deductive logic. "We live with poets and politicians, preachers and philosophers. All have their ways of knowing, and all are valid in their proper domains. The world is too complex and interesting for one way to hold all the answers. Besides, high falutin morality aside, if we continue to overextend the boundaries of science, folks like Bryan will nail us properly for their own insidious ends." Stephen Jay Gould in the essay "William Jennings Bryan's last campaign" in Bully for Brontosaurus, 1991, pp. 429-430. I suggest you read Ian Barbour's Religion and Science. You are going to be astonished by the similarity of methods used by theology and science. I think the point is that altruism is not a moral code. 1. Thinking takes place VERY rapidly.2. If you have thought about the situation beforehand, then the action is still the result of thinking. This is the basis of all training, especially in the military. Think about what you should do in a combat situation before it happens, then train again and again until you automatically do the action. So, in the situation, you would think the soldier acts without thinking. But in reality, much thought has gone into that action before the situation arose. And, in fact, military training is designed to overcome genetic instructions -- which are to save your genome by fleeing.

You inadvertently exemplified going overboard on the subject. Note that you said "moral decisions" and "automatic". Paralith addressed the "automatic" part. The article is talking just about altruism and, specifically, donating money. "Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable." There are more "moral decisions" than altruism. The research doesn't address those. It also doesn't really address "superior moral faculty". After all, someone has to define altruism. In our society, giving money is defined, as we are taught by our parents and others, as part of altruism. BUT, what if we taught that keeping money was altruism? Would the brain fire the same way? The study didn't look at that. "The more researchers learn, the more it appears that the foundation of morality is empathy. Being able to recognize -- even experience vicariously -- what another creature is going through was an important leap in the evolution of social behavior. And it is only a short step from this awareness to many human notions of right and wrong, says Jean Decety, a neuroscientist at the University of Chicago." Yes, some studies have explored this: 10. MD Hauser, Morals, apes, and us. Discover 21: 50-55, Feb. 2000.Summarizes some studies in monkeys to determine if they have "moral" behavior. 11. CD Frith and U Frith, Interacting minds -- a biological basis, Science 286:1692-1695, Nov. 26, 1999. Describes studies locating ability to "mentalize" -- understand and manipulate other people's mental states. "These studies indicate that the ability to mentalize has evolved from a system for representing actions." It is VERY tempting to reach beyond what the data says and make conclusions broader than you have data for. This story -- and the researchers and you -- did that. I caution you to be more careful in the future. Also, be VERY careful about taking research results from news articles. Be sure to check the peer-reviewed paper because you will usually find that the more sensational claims in the news article are not present in the paper.

What do you claim is the "simpler" explanation? Remember, the Razor as (mis)used is not necessarily based on "existing beliefs" but on the "simplest" explanation. So in this case, which is "simpler" as a cause for ulcers: bacteria or excess stomach acid? In order to make your argument work, you would have to say that bacteria causes the excess acid. In that case, then the "simplest" explanation is wrong. We would have the statements: 1. "ulcers are caused by excess stomach acid" 2. "ulcers are caused by excess stomach acid due to the presence of aliens" SkepticLance and Foodchain, compare #2 to the statement I posted about the motion of planets. In this case the "name" of the "aliens" is "helicobacter". BUT, by the formulation of the Razor you are using, we would accept #1 as being "most likely". Since that is the case, please answer this: why would we even bother exploring #2? This is what I really hate about the misuse of the Razor: it stops scientific research and dismisses evidence out of hand! We don't have to look for helicobacter -- or ghosts -- because we have already made up our mind. To get down and dirty, it's just what the creationists do when they say a literal Bible is correct. They start with a preconception and reject any data that doesn't fit. In SkepticLance's case, the preconception is that ghosts do not exist. That isn't based on "scripture", but just SkepticLance's prejudice. But now he applies the misused Razor to dismiss data that contradicts his prejudice. Just as creationists misapply scripture to dismiss data that contradicts their prejudice. Remember my example of hypotheses about the origin of the universe? Since deity is the simplest explanation, isn't it "most likely to be correct"? So why don't you use the Razor in that case? Then you shouldn't have entitled the thread as you did or written the OP as you did! You should have titled the thread "Inspiring tales of scientific discovery" or some such. Dhondy, what you are illustrating is what Karl Popper noted: science depends on imagination. Hypotheses are not simply digests of information. Instead, nearly always hypotheses/theories are leaps of imagination. Most often they are inspired by isolated pieces of data, but many times they are not. Instead the hypothesis/theory comes as a bolt out of the blue. The experiments come after the hypothesis and are designed specifically to test the hypothesis. For anyone in science, your point is "DUH!" It's so obvious that we don't even comment on it among ourselves anymore.

Nice story, but how does it illustrate that Occam's Razor doesn't work. Where was the Razor being used here?

No, it's not. No one has ever done probability calculations based on it. Then show us the calculations for that! This is an assertion. Beyond that, look at what you are doing! What does "most likely to be correct" mean in science? Nothing! What we want to know is whether the hypothesis is correct or not. And saying "most likely correct" doesn't cut it. The only way you can tell whether a hypothesis is correct or not is to gather the data to either falsify the hypothesis or falsify the alternative hypotheses we can think of. Yes. You are using it to dismiss entities you don't believe in. IOW, this isn't something for science and hypothesis evaluation, but a rationalization for your own prejudices.

The genes do program proteins. BUT, thought is controlled by the cells and by proteins. The issue is making the link between alleles (forms of proteins) and the biochemical process of thought. Yes, it is easier to relate behavior to the molecular for bacteria than for vertebrates. However, that does show that behavior IS linked to the molecular -- which means to evolution. However, vertebrates learn. So not all behavior is directly controlled by genes -- which is often the case among insects. The ability to learn, though, is something that has evolved. For SOME behaviors. I didn't say for all. And evolutionary psychologists don't say that all human behaviors are hard-wired by genes. Altruism is one of the few that can be discerned to be. A challenge for evolutionary psychology is figuring out how much of behavior is due to "nature" and how much to "nurture". That's the question that evolutionary psychologists are trying to answer. Right now, the answer is "they don't know". We are just going to have to be patient and wait while the question is answered. Foodchain, when you deal with science, you must learn to live with unanswered questions. Most people don't like waiting for answers. They want to know NOW! Therefore they jump to conclusions. One of the first lessons you learn in training to be a scientist at the Ph.D. level is patience and not jumping to conclusions. You have to be content with "I don't know" until such time as you have data to know. The idea right now is that the brain is composed of "modules" that do specific thinking tasks. These "modules" are not discreet areas but rather networks of neurons that are genetically controlled during development. Evolutionary psychologists are confident they have found a "module" to detect cheating. This is an obvious necessity in a social animal depending on reciprocal behavior of other individuals. You have to detect the cheaters who always take but never give. One reason evolutionary psychologists concluded the module exists is that problems to test detection of cheaters work across all cultures. I can give you a reading list to give you a start on how evolutionary psychologists are tackling the problem. It's too complex to give you a simple answer. And many of the techniques are still being worked out and argued over. Are We Hardwired? by WR Clark and M Grunstein "The number of genes involved in most behaviors would certainly be in the range of dozens, and perhaps hundreds." But variations in serotonin levels are associated with behaviors ranging from agression or depression, and there are known genes controlling serotonin levels. The Origin and Evolution of Intelligence by AB Scheibel and JW Schopf 1. N Williams, Evolutionary psychologists look for roots of cognition. Science 275 (3 Jan): 29-30, 1997. 2. R Plomin and JC DeFries, The genetics of cognitive abilities and disabilities. Scientific American, 278: 62-69, May 1998. 3. G Vogel, DNA suggests cultural traits affect whale's evolution.Science 282: 1616, Nov. 27, 1998. Primary article is H Whitehead,Cultural selection and genetic diversity in matrilineal whales. Science282: 1708-1710, Nov. 27, 1998. 4. M Morange, The Misunderstood Gene. Harvard University Press, 2001. "the genes involved in learning are not specific to this process; they code for ordinary proteins that are involved in intercellular interactions and intracellular signaling pathways. There are no proteins specific to learing and memory but rather proteins that, through their function as relays or transmitters, have been harnessed by evolution in the development of cognitive processes." 1. GM Edelman and G Tononi, A Universe of Consciousness How Matter Becomes Imagination, Basic Books, 2000. Argue that a Darwinian model can be applied to neural activity to explain consciousness. In this "neural Darwinism", selective mechanisms on various scales arise, favoring certain neuronal firing patterns over others. 2. http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/294/5544/1030 Review of memory and learning as chemical processes. 3. JG Nicholls, AR Martin, BG Wallace, PA Fuchs From Neuron to Brain, 2002