Ophiolite

If the universes are infinite, but not eternal, then there might not be time for such a being to develop.

Any member who has nothing better to do with there time than note the general tender of my posts is likely aware that I am not prone to either fear, or irrationality. (I believe, but am ready to stand corrected, that the staff decision to award me Expert Status is a reflection of that.) I am not afraid that GMOs will poison me. I am not afraid that GMOs will cause me to develop cancer. I am not afraid that GMOs will suddenly enter a period of abnormal mutation and turn into bizarre 'monsters'.1 However, I do have three - quite different - concerns. 1. I never had this conversation, but I could have asked my grandfather what he remembered hearing from his father about the Irish Potato Famine. Monocultures are dangerous. GMOs encourage the development of monocultures and suppress diversity. 2. GMOs are controlled by large corporations. I am not using the knee jerk reaction that accompanies some leftist rants that put this down to corporate greed, but I've seen how large corporations work from the inside. Their interest is in enhancing shareholder value. Their focus is short-term. (If there is any greed involved that's down to you and me failing to direct our retirement plans away from fast growing, quick return companies. But that's another matter.) This constitutes a political and economic danger. 3. I am wholly unconvinced that we yet understand the potential consequences of some of the changes we are making. Some assurances have already failed - modified genes found in organisms distances beyond the control zone. The probability of a negative consequence may be low, but the consequence itself may be devastating. (I have never needed the seat belt on an aircraft, but I dutifully buckle up each time I fly.) I hope that none of my concerns lead to unpleasant or catastrophic consequences, but I am pleased that in Europe we have taken a more cautious approach to GM. Footnote: 1: And I no one here has said that, so I am not erecting a strawman, but it is one of the accusations I've heard from fringe anti-GM persons.

Could you provide a summary of your findings here. Not all members like to access unknown sites. Moreover, it is easier for the discussion to take place on a discussion forum, not half, or largely offline.

Intelligence is of questionable value in the evolutionary game of survival: 1. Our intelligence has not stopped us indulging in killing fellow members of the species at a greater rate than is seen in most animals. 2. Our intelligence has produced technologies that are currently threatening our own continued existence as a species. On this basis intelligence is very much a two edged sword. (One that we don't appear to have the intelligence to handle.) If you really want to see success in evolution then look at rats and cockroaches.

Did you leave your manners at the door?

A dispassionate examination of the evidence. Life apparently evolved in the space of 100 to 300 million years. Yet it took a further 1.5 billion years to move from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. The difference in complexity between non-life and life is greater than that between prokaryotes and eukaryotes.

The Galapagos finches seem to be able to produce marked changes within a handful of generations when responding to environmental changes and drawing on natural variations within the population. Intuitively I don't see it as being a problem. But I'm not well versed in general evolutionary rates, which is why I was asking if that was short. My gut tells me no, but what does my gut know?

Not a problem. I'm not clear on what you are planning when you suggest "using an algorithm". Could you elaborate? I think there are well established methods for computing orbits of NEOs once these are identified. The problem lies, I thought, in detecting them in the first place and then in observing them over a long enough period, or a sufficient number of passes, to pin down the orbital parameters. Have I got that wrong? (This is not my area of expertise. I'm more interested in what happens when they hit.)

250 generations. Is that a short time?

The potential threat of NEO impacts is a very serious one. I am pleased that governments, organisations and individuals around the world take the issue seriously. I applaud your interest in this competition and wish you luck finding collaborators. I am puzzled by your uncertainty about whether or not the contest is over. The NASA release is dated March 10th and the text states, "NASA’s Asteroid Data Hunter contest series will offer $35,000 in awards over the next six months to citizen scientists who develop improved algorithms that can be used to identify asteroids." and "The first contest in the series will kick off on March 17." and "Managed by the NASA Tournament Lab, the entire contest series runs through August and is the first contest series contributing to the agency’s Asteroid Grand Challenge."

. I believe Galileo was fond of these too.

While this may become true for the majority of the population at present it is only true for a small percentage in the developed world and an even smaller percentage in the rest of the world. So, am I correct that you wish to discuss this from the POV of the West? I don't see how this conclusions follows from your premises. Let's take one of your financially independent women who decides to raise a child without a partner. Do you assert that she will not seek out a good-looking, or intelligent, or successful (hinting at a genetic makeup suited to this environment) as the father, even if she finds him personally a bit of a bore, etc.? Like chadn I am confused by what you mean here. I sense that you may have the commonly misunderstood idea that there are good genes and bad genes. This is not the case. Any truly 'bad' genes are likely to kill the individual before they are even born. Some genes are effective in a particular environment and others less so. Change the environment and the identity of the more useful gene switches. And this has little to do with whether or not the genes are dominant or recessive. Perhaps you could expand on your thinking on this point so we could better correct any misunderstandings.

Using the extremely limited intellectual prowess of an ephemeral species to explore the inadequately understood aspects of a universe that has received only cursory study and presuming that laws which apply to the here and now also applied in the the there and qwrtach and forming an absolute conclusion appears to be an exercise in futility.

My nailed it comment was directed at the immediately preceding post by ajb. My position on the matter remains unchanged from my post #9.

Purchase everything written by Stuart Kauffman. Read it. Understand it.

Here is the process you have been using. 1. Identify the things that humans are good at. 2. Assert that these things are more important than the things humans are not good at. 3. Observe that we are good at these important things. 4. Conclude that we are superior. I agree with you. It's not arrogant. It's just stupid.

Nailed it. Nothing more need be said. (Oops! I just said something more.)

Mike, your perception of science and the scientific method do not align with reality. You clearly have artistic tendencies and talents. Among these, I think, is a tendency to to take a holistic view of phenomena; to seek out an understanding of the gestalt. Such a viewpoint has a place within science, but it lies at the end of the path to enlightenment, not at the beginning. Science requires detail. Detailed observations; detailed hypotheses; detailed experiments; detailed validation. When the detail has been observed, postulated and tested, then - and only then - can it be subsumed into an overarching synthesis. You are attempting the synthesis ahead of the analysis. That does not work. That is why you are encountering hostility and contradiction. Take a step back; take a deep breath; and re-evaluate.

I have been following this discussion. I too would welcome a simple set of direct answers to the questions raised by Spyman in post #38. I can see no good reason to fail to answer those questions. They are reasonable and pertinent. By refusing to answer them you are deflecting the discussion from the issue. I find that to be bizarre.

I'd like to challenge the premise. On what basis do you say people are not interested in astronomy? How interested do you think they should be? Judging by the space devoted to subjects in the second hand book shops I frequent, astronomy is the most popular of science subjects, narrowly beating out evolution. We might lament the fact that more people are interested in football, or basketball, or who Paris Hilton is sleeping with, but that may be because we are interested in science. So, I can agree that people are not so interested in science, but not that this is especially true of astronomy.

Let us know when you have completed that study and have something meaningful to contribute.

I have had a small insight, too small to be called an epiphany, but perhaps both relevant to this thread and independently interesting. Humans have an innate ability for original thought. Only persons much more intellectually gifted than I should succumb to the temptation to explore that ability.

Since we always fight the last war, when fighting the current one and we have not yet fought aliens, then basically we're screwed.

All for it, but only after we have stopped the current human induced mass extinction of species we have not yet even recognised.

I trust you have no antipathy towards Cornwall, though you did omit it above. The same Variscan (or Hercynian) mountain building that accompanied the closure of the Rheic ocean, also melded oceanic crust onto the continent. It remains now as part of the Lizard peninsula. It is an ophiolite. Recognise the name?