Arete

This a seriously commendable effort to fit the most number of flawed statements into a single paragraph. 1) Just so I'm straight, you're claiming that nothing in the entire realm of science provides any evidence to counter the claim that the known universe is 6,000 years old? If that is what you're saying, that's patently absurd. I'm struggling to think of a scientific field which DOESN'T reject the idea of young earth creationism to an extremely high statistical probability. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Branches_of_science_you_have_to_ignore_to_believe_in_young_Earth_creationism 2) Strong evidence of multiple species which, to quote "understand truth at a fundamental level and have a mastery of physics". Really? Excluding Homo sapiens, name one. 3) "Completed development" is meaningless in the context of a continuous process like evolution. Not even wrong territory. 4) The rate at which evolution occurs (i.e. the change of allele frequency in a population) is a product of mutation rate, generation time, population size and selective pressure. It can be extremely slow, or very rapid. A blanket statement about rates of evolution is inherently incorrect. 5) The next section is highly confusing. Are you saying that for a lizard or a frog (two completely different vertebrate lineages btw) are "simple organisms" and you know precisely how long it takes them to evolve from the primordial soup? 6) "Speciation takes X years" is a laughably ignorant statement. Aside from the fact that "species" is an arbitrary point on the continuum of biological diversification, the process of diversification ranges in rate from extremely fast (>200 years in the case of the apple maggot fly http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v407/n6805/abs/407739a0.html)to extremely slow (hundreds of millions of years in crocodilians http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10709-005-8008-2#page-1) To say it takes "no more than 4 million years" is comprehensively false. 7) "Strong possibility of changing history" - this sentence is nonsensical in this context. 8) Again, it is difficult to make sense of your last sentence here, but you appear to be saying that science only takes into account that which is observable, and thus looks for causation of observations in observable phenomena. Which is absolutely true, but I would utterly fail to see why this a weakness of the scientific method.

Here's a categorized list of over 1350 peer reviewed publications supporting the mainstream scientific view on anthropgenic global warming - will it do? http://www.populartechnology.net/2009/10/peer-reviewed-papers-supporting.html

Not to mention that many of the reasons for e.g. mouse models specifically are used - short generation times, existence of transgenic lines, ability to house many individuals for replication, cost, etc. would be discounted entirely if you used prisoners. In fact, you simply couldn't do a lot of medical research with humans as opposed to animals. For e.g. a lot of immunological research is done on T and B cell knockout mice - i.e. mouse lines that have been genetically modified to not have functioning immune systems. If you wanted to recreate a human equivalent, you'd have to engineer a human embryo and raise it in a sterile environment. It could never be done using an already adult human, as a death row inmate would be. And that's just one example of how the idea is fatally flawed, without invoking any ethical concerns.

Being in an ecology and evolutionary biology department, a huge percentage of our basic science research is done on animals, with no "clear" benefit to humans (.i.e, it's basic research - and has no direct applied outcome). E.g. My PhD research looked at speciation in geckos, as a result, I sampled a large number of them from wild populations. My wife's research looks at sexual selection in agamids, and as such she both samples wild populations and has captive populations for mating experiments. We also have a group who looks at behavioral ecology in fish, sexual selection in birds, etc, etc. Basically, under the model you're proposing, none of this research would be done, or at least it would get a lot more costly and bureaucratic to obtain permits (it's already non- trivial to get animal ethics permission for animal research). I know the type of research you're thinking of is clinical trials involving animal models and not the observation of natural populations, but that idea already does permeate ethics boards and generates misunderstanding when we apply for permits. I don't think the answer is to create more red tape in the way of scientists trying to do research. It's already tough on graduate student timelines that it takes months to get approvals to work on animals. I can't see any way that deliberately making that time longer and more costly would do anything but waste a lot more time and money. If anything improving the time/financial efficiency of the approval process would get the public more value per dollar spent by granting agencies on research.

Blasting the tissue culture lab with Dethklok

"Tatbir (Arabic: تطبير‎), also known as Talwar zani and Qama Zani in South Asia,[1] is an act of mourning by some of Shi'i Muslims for the younger grandson of Muhammad, Imam Husayn ibn Ali, who was martyred along with his children, companions and near relatives at the Battle of Karbala by the Umayyad Caliph Yazid I. ... The practice of Tatbir includes striking oneself with a form of a talwar "sword" on the head, causing blood to flow in remembrance of the innocent blood of Imam Husayn. Some Twelvers also hit their back and/or chest with blades attached to chains." Directly from the wiki article. If you need further clarification, you'll need to refine your question.

Your question is ambiguous. Please clarify.

Which is what, precisely?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatbir

Archaeology, the study of human activity in the past, doesn't generally doesn't have much to say about fossils. Perhaps you meant paleontology? That's a pretty egregious error, I fear characteristic of a profound lack of understanding regarding the fundamental principles of evolutionary theory, and if I was to make a wild assumption, telling of a rather disingenuous approach to the topic at hand. You really need to support this statement as it's rather trivially contradicted by a large volume of empirical observation of selection in the fossil record. I would go so far as to say it patently wrong. For a very small example: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.0014-3820.2006.tb00514.x/abstract http://www.jstor.org/stable/2410098?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents http://www.psjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1666/05026.1 http://www.psjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1666/05026.1 http://www.pnas.org/content/83/18/6897.short etc ad infinitum. Again, this rather blatantly false. Many of the organisms represented in the fossil record are extinct members of lineages which have no extant members - so what you're saying is never observed, is routinely observed. Additionally deformed individuals have been observed in the fossil record on a regular basis for over a century. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3220690?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents This argument may stem from a common misconception made by those with no fundamental understanding of evolutionary theory. In the context of evolution, individual fitness is defined by the quotient of an individual's genetic material which is passed to the next generation - and nothing else. A) You'll need to explain how the idea phenotypes which fail to reproduce are not highly abundant is "misguided" as that assertion appears to defy the very basics of logic. B) Deleterious mutations are observed in virtually every population we've ever looked at http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIE6bBadgenes.shtmlso to say they aren't routinely observed would be, again, blatantly false. C) The vast majority of mutations are not deleterious, but neutral http://www.genetics.org/content/156/1/297.full So basically the claim made here is based on "facts" which are comprehensively wrong. A) A vast swathe of deleterious mutations are "weeded out" prior to birth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lethal_allele. Lethal mutations in the embryo are the primary cause of miscarriage. This is yet another is a growing list of increasingly absurd, blatantly untrue statements. To call the following argument a castle made of sand would be an insult to the structural integrity of sand. B) Birds without wings... you mean these guys? C) Again, the argument that a deleterious mutation has to propagate within a population in order for natural selection to remove it from said population defies the very basics of logic. D) Also - trying to state that gross deformities are not observed is the fossil record is, you guessed it, blatantly false observation of deformed fossils have been observed for over a century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teratology#Other_animals http://www.jstor.org/stable/3220690?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents A) The tired old macro- micro- evolution argument. This is like saying you accept days, but not years. B) New families don't suddenly appear. It takes millions of years. C) Selection, as cited previously, is evident from the fossil record. Funny that... Well when you blatantly make stuff up, you can delude yourself that it is. No one labelled you a creationist. I'm guessing this is copypasta, but regardless, nice strawman. OMG not source material - how inconvenient.... most of the links provided by me are to scientific articles to provide a reference for a statement. This is using peer reviewed empirical evidence to prove I didn't just make shit up - as it appears is modus operandi for you. The idea of referencing should come up in freshman year. It's evident in the first line of the opening post - where you confuse archaeology for paleontology you're the party with an acute lack of understanding. As characterized the fossil record doesn't support anything you're saying. This statement is an equivalent to "you haven't explained why the earth is flat, so you're wrong!"

Since you're the first person to bring it up in this thread, it appears that you are party with the complex about reputation scores.

1. ME? Do you mean Montenegro? Mexico? Middle Earth? 2. Do you want to work as an immunologist in a clinical setting, or as a research scientist? 3. If you want to be a clinican, you would first have to have your MD recognized int he US,with an ECFMG certification http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-people/member-groups-sections/international-medical-graduates.page? Then you would need to find an immunology residency/fellowship program to take you on. http://www.nrmp.org/fellowships/allergy-immunology-match/I'm not an MD so I have little other advice on going about that particular career. 4. If you want to become a research scientist, you'd need to get a PhD. PhD programs in the US generally have a GRE or equivalent requirement stipulated by the university itself, along with a minimum GPA requirement. If you don't have a GRE score it'll be tough to get into a grad program even if you found a lab willing to take you on. Some students can get a conditional acceptance to a program pending an acceptable GRE score, but there's not really many ways around it. 5. The kicker for me as a PI in a research lab would be the lack of lab experience, and (making another assumption here) a seeming unwillingness to get some. If you can't operate a pipette, write scripts and have never written a research article before, you're less useful to me than an undergraduate intern. I'd be very surprised if an MD who had never shown enough interest to get some wet bench experience along the way suddenly wanted to change career paths, and they'd need a pretty good argument for me to take them on.

As I tried to point out, it's logically flawed in that you can't use the low probability of an event occurring as evidence that it can't happen by chance. The argument it inherently illogical. As another example to go along with the dice one I posed earlier, the likelihood of an individual ticket buyer winning a lottery is absurdly low. However, if you sell enough tickets, eventually, via the simple mathematics of probability, someone will win. An individual lottery winner claiming it must have been a magic/a miracle/their lucky rabbit's foot because the odds of them in particular winning were so low, a person with a decent grasp of how probability works should see the obvious flaw in that argument. Given you seem to have a good grasp of how this applies to population genetics, I'm kind of surprised to see you defending such an obviously flawed argument. I agree with you in that we don't know the precise odds of abiogenesis, nor the number of events/replications needed for it to eventuate, but even if they are absurdly slim, you can't use that low probability as a post hoc argument that the event couldn't have happened. Its just not a sensible argument, from a probabilistic standpoint. I disagree, in that if science is being done well, such a conclusion is specifically avoided. Retention of a null hypothesis is not a declaration that the test hypothesis is untrue - it is an acknowledgement that it can't be statistically supported. Vice versa, there's no such thing as a perfect p value, so it is always allowed that a significant result is possibly the result of chance. Similarly, a scientist could never use negative data such as a low probability for abiogenesis to support an alternative with equally (or in the case of young earth creationism, considerably sparser) sparse evidence. Without statistically supported evidence for an alternative, you accept the null. In the case of two competing hypotheses with equally low support, you apply Occam's razor to accept the hypothesis with the least assumptions. In this case, the existence of an interventionist deity, or panspermia require more unevidenced assumption than it happened by chance on earth. Therefore the best, most scientific answer to the whole premise would be "we have no evidence to support either hypothesis, but fall back on the null of random chance until better evidence is forthcoming" - or in layman's terms - we don't know and aren't making any assertions" Again, there's no good evidence to support any hypothesis, so speculation is perfectly valid - but for to claim low probability of abiogenesis lends validity to unevidenced claims in any scientific sense would be wrong.

This is absurdly contradictory. The author characterized (using some highly assumptive, extremely back of the envelope "maths") the rough probability of an event to be >0. Therefore by definition, not impossible. Furthermore, there's an inherent flaw in using low probability to infer that an event which has evidently happened, can't happen. As an example, if I roll a single die 100 times, the probability of rolling 100 sixes is 1/6100 , or approximately 1.5 x 10-78. However, the probability of every other possible combination is 1.5 x 10-78. If I were to conduct the experiment (i.e. roll a die 100 times) it would be exceedingly illogical to then use the low probability of my result as a justification for it not being possible by chance. All outcomes have a low probability, but one of them has to eventuate if the experiment is conducted. It would also be a rather poignant demonstration of how low probability events happen by chance, and their low probability of occurring is in no way evidence that they cannot occur.

The evolutionary basis of altruism/co-operation is explored through game theory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_game_theory You're basically describing a game theory model known as the prisoner's dilemma. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma The payoff for co-operative or defective behavior is dependent on the actions of others. Therefore, the probabilistic advantage of behaving selfishly or altruistically is determined by how others behave, and how well you can predict or know how they will behave.

I think in many cases this applies to ignorance as well as stupidity. Most of us will learn a little about a topic and think we understand it well. You then learn a little more and discover the true depth of the field and how little you actually know. With posters here who are very confident in interpretations of science that, to a person with a good knowledge of the field are obviously wrong, are in this first step - they did a course on physics/biology/etc. or read a popular science book, and the basic idea "clicked" for them. They think they "get it" and often they do get the basic idea, but their understanding is based on a caricature of the actual concept, and the unintuitive nuances that are understood by people with more experience in the field appear wrong/contradictory to them. Combine this with the prevailing inability of us all to admit we are wrong on the internet, and you see people arguing from an obviously wrong position, digging a deeper and deeper hole - it's always hard to know when a mod should step in to pull the plug, particularly when the tone remains civil.

In the context of biology, this is incorrect. Fitness has a very simple definition; the quotient of heritable material and individual passes to the next generation. It really is that simple, and it boils down to a very simple mathematical model. Unfortunately, as you are displaying, it's also one of the most misunderstood, partially because of the misleading nature of the phrase "survival of the fittest". Here is some information to clarify. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2753274/ http://www.radford.edu/~rsheehy/GraphingDemo/fitness1.html http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2007/01/22/fitness/ The first sentence is delving into "not even wrong" territory, in that a "push for greater fitness" i.e. selection is one of many forces in an evolutionary model, and cannot comprise a model in of itself. The second sentence is incorrect. 1) Humans are not a population in HWE, but rather a metapopulaton of a number of sub-populations. As a whole the human species is therefore not in equilibrium, and sub-populations vary in their levels of heterozygosity (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929712003230 http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7319/abs/nature09534.html) 2. No population is ever in perfect HWE, so selection and stochastic variation continually push populations of organisms away from equilibrium. If you're talking about punctuated equilibrium, this is a distinct theory from HWE. The cyclic stasis and adaptive radiation which characterize are driven by variation in evolutionary forces. There's no expectation of HWE, but an see sawing of stabilizing and diversifying selection through time. As stated, evolutionary fitness has a bleedingly simple definition. I'd also like to note I didn't define it once, until now in this thread - you actually quoted CharonY not me. The hardest part about understand the definition is stripping away all the assumptive attachments people characterize it with. You, yourself have incorrectly described it above as survivabilty. You can live a long time but if you fail to reproduce, your fitness in a biological sense is zero. 0_o That's hard to believe:

But you do have a pickup with a gun rack, right OP's question: So, as background my lab is a university research lab which is currently funded by a pharma company. I pursued the PhD track, my Co-PI went down the MD/PhD track, so I've had a fair bit of exposure to many scientific career routes. I don't think your particular major matters very much. Ultimately your transcript and particular courses you take matters a lot more, along with experience. If I had two candidates for grad school - one of who had a mediocre GPA in all highly relevant courses, and another who had a slightly different field of study, but a stellar GPA and lab experience, I'd be going with student 2, on the proviso they did a few catch up courses. Obviously if you're looking at graduate study you need a pretty decent GPA to qualify - assuming that, the particular major isn't too big of a deal. If the bio major is more flexible, do some chemistry courses and you'd have virtually the same degree as the biochem major. The other big thing is to do some extracurricluar research, like a summer internship or two. Actual experience at a wet bench, or with bioinformatics will put you head and shoulders above people with none. I can't stress that enough. As for research/career trajectories: 1) Assuming you are in the US, do not do an MD if you don't wish to be a clinical doctor. MD programs are extremely expensive, if the aim is to do non-clinical research, incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt for a superfluous degree is only going to cause you grief. 2) I'd think carefully about your motivations to do a PhD before embarking on one. Currently, just under half of PhDs in STEM actually end up with a STEM career (the remainder retraining into non-science industries e.g. a postdoc in my former lab left biology to become an investment banker) and less than 10% wind up tenured academics. PhDs aren't magical lucrative career tickets, and it's highly competitive all the way through. If you're not passionate about scientific research there are far easier paths to a comfortable salary and a secure job. 3) Always have a back up plan you are pretty certain you'd enjoy doing. There's a fair bit of luck in every successful academic career. If you have any specific questions, feel free to drop me a PM. Agroscience (Monsanto, Du-Pont, etc), Pharma (Pfizer, Sanfoni-Aventis, etc) and Biotech (Roushe, ABI etc) have all hired both Bachelor and PhD grads from our lab. Starting salaries for BSc grads are in the $40k range, and PhD grads in the 60k range. The ceiling is considerably higher for the PhD grads. Compare that to to law grads where it ranges from $135-160K http://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2014/03/28/law-schools-whose-grads-make-the-highest-starting-salaries/ If money is your primary motivator, biology is probably not the best choice.

Pot, meet kettle. Plus, it's a discussion forum. I am discussing. It tends to be what we do here. You just quoted someone else, and attributed it to me. You also, as CharonY points out, got the biological definition of fitness wrong. Survival is not biological fitness. Fitness involves the contribution of genetic material to the next generation. You also might want to drop the snarky little personal attacks, as if you want an example of something that doesn't add anything to a discussion they are it. You missed the point. You claim that "ALL biological systems are pushing to greater fitness". Various biological process - drift, inbreeding, hitchhiking, recombination, etc are all capable of moving a population lower on a fitness landscape, hence to a state of less fitness. Making your previous comment about fitness demonstrably incorrect. Might want to take Bio101 again... While selection is undoubtedly a major force in evolution, so is drift. As previously cited, drift can overwhelm selection. To claim otherwise is to contradict decades of empirical population genetic data. You can't generalize about the role of selection in evolution, as it is not a continuous force. As previously cited (again), a reduction in selection pressure is often associated with adaptive radiation. Hence drift and selection operate synergistically to create phenotypic diversity. To claim one force over the other is simplistic to the point of being incorrect. Could you point out where I, or anyone else claimed any of this, please? It seems like an example of the pointless soapboxing you so vehemently despise.

Which I never defined in this thread. They aren't but I guess you're entitled to your opinion. My irony meter just broke. Which I never commented on. Demonstrably false. Drift can cause the fixation of deleterious alleles in a population leading to reduced fitness - http://www.nature.com/hdy/journal/v110/n3/abs/hdy201286a.html http://www.genetics.org/content/198/4/1587.short http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1558-5646.2011.01311.x/abstract;jsessionid=4858B37A1780144F265243325AF57DC3.f03t04?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false Which is a strawman as I never said anything of the sort. Nor have I ever heard any biologist of note claim that evolution is dictated by anyone or anything's "discretion". This seems to be something you made up. This doesn't actually make sense to me - care to elaborate?

Your assumption is questionable for various reasons already discussed at length. This statement contains a number of errors: 1 Genetic drift does not result in alleles. I'd suggest re-acquainting yourself with what genetic drift is http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIIDGeneticdrift.shtml 2: Evolution is a continuous process. Intraspecific and interspecific variation don't neatly seperate. As has been repeated a number of times throughout this thread, there doesn't. Drift occurs in the absence of selection, or any other driving force. See previous link. As previously posted, evidence such as that from the Framingham heart study directly contradict this statement. Fecundity =/= Selection. Also, previous links have shown you that strong selection pressure often slows evolutionary rates by limiting genetic diversity. The (unsubstantiated) argument that humans are undergoing less selection pressure than an as yet unnamed "wild" species does not lead to the conclusion that the "wild" species is evolving faster. In fact the opposite is quite possible. That's a complete non-sequitur. See above. There is no such thing as "negative" or de-evolution, as it implies purpose or direction in the evolutionary process. The idea has long been debunked. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devolution_%28biology%29 The fundamental flaw in this argument is that the so called "deleterious" alleles are not out-competing so called "advantageous" or neutral alleles. A relaxation of selection pressure (if it even exists) allows for the accumulation of a higher diversity of alleles. As has also been pointed out, this is the fuel which fires the evolutionary process. A more genetically diverse population has greater evolutionary potential in a changing environment. The accumulation of a greater diversity of neutral, or mildly deleterious mutations in a population increases its potential to adapt. Hence rather the opposite of reducing its evolutionary rate.

I think it should be remembered that Dawkins is an author and a professional speaker who charges for appearances. Being controversial is inherently critical to his business model, and I'd be surprised to learn he didn't deliberately say certain controversial things for the sake of being controversial. That said, I don't think he's running a deliberate "crusade" against religion. He's said some not very nice things about religious belief. Given that certain religious groups tell me I'd going to be tortured for eternity for disagreeing with them, I think that Dawkins saying that they are a bit silly is pretty mild in comparison. Does it work? Well, anecdotally I know people who read Dawkins and had his books clarify and consolidate pre-existent doubts about religion, however, I think his manner is too condescending to really persuade a strong believer and is more likely to push them away from his arguments than really change minds. I Doubt that is really his intention anyway.

As I mentioned, it's easy because of the numerous examples of intraspecific karyotypic variation which disprove it. The most notable example is Mus musculus domesticus - the house mouse, which has 97 known chromosomal arrangements distributed across its distribution, ranging from 2n=22 to 2n=40 chromosomes, with between 2 and 25 chromosomal rearrangements. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2005.00454.x/abstractThis comprehensively dismisses the claim that chromosome number is fixed within a species, and that a chromosomal rearrangement renders an individual sterile. It's also not just mice - here's examples in bats, mosquitoes, sponges, lizards, frogs, gophers ... you get the idea. Chromosomal variation is also quite common in plants - more so than vertebrates - the famous biologist George Stebbins did a lot of work on karyotypic evolution in plants. ​Ultimately the claim is simply wrong. Chromosome number isn't fixed within every species, and chromosomal rearrangement doesn't result in sterility - approximately 1 in 1,000 people have a robertsonian fusion, and thus 45 or even 44 chromosomes instead of 46. The majority are perfectly healthy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robertsonian_translocation

It is ridiculous. It's also a strawman argument I often find difficult to understand why people repeat. The claim of evolutionary theory is that vertebrates have a common ancestor. You and your second cousins have a common ancestor in your great grandparents. That is a totally different claim than your child turned into your second cousin. Shared ancestry is not equivalent to one thing turning into another. This simply wrong. See polyploidy. I would suggest whoever devised the argument is ignorant of basic biology. Again, simply false. See Roberstonian translocation. Mouse populations can have between 40 and 60 chromosome pairs and are not reproductively isolated http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1095-8312.2005.00454.x/abstract Again, simply false. See chromosomal speciation. The explanation is for all intents an purposes, completely wrong.

It should also be noted that a release from stringent selection is often associated with rapid adaptive radiation: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20561138 http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/652433 While it may seem intuitive to the layman that reduced selection = reduced evolution, the opposite is actually prevalent.