The inconvenient truth about genetics

[DanielBoyd]

It’s safe to say that most people – not just the (wo)man in the street but also biologists – work on the assumption that genetics explains what we are, or at least our bodies. There is, of course, a nature-nurture debate concerning many of our mental functions. Clearly, genetics doesn’t explain which language we speak. And there’s a thing called epigenetics: the influence of our environment on how we develop. If you eat too much you get fat, work out in the gym and your muscles grow. But the fact that we’ve got two arms and two legs, a heart that beats, eyes that see – that’s all genetics, right? Wrong. 

To explain why, we’re going to have to go pretty deep, but I’ll do my best to keep it as simple as possible. So stick with me!

The first thing we need to consider is how complicated things can exist at all. There’s this thing you might of heard of called the Second Law of Thermodynamics: order decays into chaos. To take a simple example, if you put your hot mug of tea down briskly then before long the tea will stop sloshing, and before much longer it will have cooled to room temperature. It’s not just your tea that the Second Law wants to ‘level out’. Physicists tell us that in the end the whole universe will settle into a cold, flat and featureless state. Fortunately, we’re nowhere near that point now. There’s still a lot of energy about that can create interesting structures in defiance of the Second Law. And (making things simple again) there are just two ways of doing this. The first is design and construction: what we people are great at. From farming to pharmaceuticals, we use our brains to think up what we want and how to get it and then use our hands to make it. The second is self-assembly. This is how everything else in the physical universe comes to exist, from round planets to delicate snowflakes and from craggy mountains to rippled sandy beaches. There’s no design behind these things, just the laws of physics acting on material substances. 

When faced with the challenge of explaining our existence, most religions quite reasonably concluded that we must be designed. After all, surely it’s ridiculous to suppose that such wonderfully complex things could exist without a design? A design required a designer, the designer was God: problem solved? Unfortunately not. 

As biology taught us ever more about just how complex the inner workings of animals and plants are, how these structures are built of invisibly tiny cells – and how complicated the inner workings of these cells are – the idea of ‘breathing life into clay’ became woefully insufficient. How an intelligent designer could cause each fertilized egg or seed to grow into a man or a oak tree became a bit of a thing.

Then science came up with an alternative explanation. Biologists found a set of instructions encoded in DNA that is present in each fertilized egg cell: the genome. Conveniently, this turned out to be a mash-up of the genomes of the parents with a dash of random mutation, which neatly mirrors the inheritance visible between parents and children. If you add natural selection to this combination of inheritance and variation then evolution is inevitable. And given evolution we can explain the entire branching tree of life all the way back to the first simple cell that somehow formed in the primeval soup billions of years ago. Case closed? Not quite.

Certainly, the genome is an instruction kit. Actually a remarkably simple one: a string of codes that is used to determine which amino acid building blocks to string together into the chains that form the basis for all of the cell’s proteins. Not something complicated like the autoCAD designs that you need a degree in engineering to interpret when building a car. It is this simplicity that allows us to clearly conclude just what the genome does – and what it doesn’t. Unfortunately, it tells us that the genome cannot act as a design for the organism.

A claim that flies do rudely in the face of accepted wisdom clearly needs solid substantiation, so here are short descriptions of not one but ten lines of reasoning that support this conclusion:

Reason 1: The genome does not contain enough information. Any design needs to contain all the information necessary to accurately specify the product. For a ball bearing, this is easy: make a steel sphere with diameter x. Now think about how much information is required to define your body: all its different kinds of cells, its tissues and organs, its shape and size. It may seem that the billions of base pairs in your genome contain a lot of information, but they are not used individually: instead long strings of them (genes) are used together to build a protein. The number of different proteins that can be built is a more modest tens of thousands. Variations in these proteins are the only information that the genome actually sends out into the world, and this information is not nearly enough to define and distinguish a man from a mantis and a cat from a caterpillar.

Reason 2: The genome only says how to build some parts. The best analogy for the genome is the book of blueprints used in a vehicle factory to make the metal parts it needs. Whenever a particular part is needed, the engineer opens the book at the right page, makes the part, and passes it on to the production line. Building a vehicle also requires all sorts of plastic and rubber parts, which come from other sources and are not based on these blueprints. Similarly, the genome provides the information needed to make proteins, but no designs for the many other essential cellular components such as fats, carbohydrates and minerals. Some of these are built with the help of enzymes (a kind of protein) but this indirect genetic effect does not constitute an end-product design.

Reason 3: The genome does not determine which of its genes are used and when. Depending on whether the factory is building bicycles or biplanes, some blueprints will be used while others are not, but the instruction book has no say in the matter. Similarly, your genome is a resource that can be used by each of the very different types of cells in your body to produce those proteins they need. Many are only used in specific types of cell. Your genome does not independently determine which of its genes will be called upon. So genetic information does not even determine which parts are available to build each cell.

Reason 4: The genome cannot guide its products. Simply sending loose parts to the production line is not going to build a car. Similarly, a functioning cell isn’t just a jumbled bag of molecules: instead it contains a collection of structures that must be built out of proteins and other molecules. After a protein has been constructed on the basis of genetic information, it therefore needs to go to the right place in the cell and join up with other molecules in order to play its part. The genome has no information or mechanism to guide it. 

Reason 5: No way of reaching the next level. A country’s transport systems require the right vehicles to be in the right places. A ship at an airport or a car moored in a harbor are not going to be particularly effective. Factory blueprints for metal parts are clearly far detached from this higher level of organisation. Similarly, our bodies are strictly organised systems created by having the right cells in the right places, and there is no genetic information that says how to build morphological structures like a leg, a heart or an eye. 

Reason 6: The limited role of developmental proteins. Most of a cars parts are designed to help it work as a vehicle. On the other hand, honking horns, flashing headlights and indicators have an external function, allowing interaction with other vehicles to ensure effective and safe traffic flows. A particularly loud horn may be more effective, while a malfunctioning one may lead to an accident. However, this is not to say that the instructions for building the metal parts of cars horns can be considered as an explanation for the transport function of the road network. Like the parts of a car, most of the proteins built on the basis of genetic instructions have a job within the cell, but some have signalling functions between cells that help them to interact and work together to form and operate as an organism. Variations in these proteins will have an effect on the organism’s developmental processes. However, this is not to say that the genome contains information on how cells should be arranged to build organs, or organs should be arranged to build a body. 

Reason 7: Lack of construction endpoint. A design-and-construction process starts off with raw materials and works towards the endpoint described in the design. The result is therefore only functional at the end of construction: a car can only drive at the end of the production line; a protein can only do its thing when it is complete. This is a luxury that living organisms do not have. They need to be viable from the first moment, all the way through embryonic, foetal and infant stages to adulthood. For this reason organisms cannot be the product of endpoint design.

Reason 8: Diversity from the same genome. It is not only the many different kinds of cell in an organism that share the same genetic instruction book. The same applies to entirely different organisms. Vertebrates are unusual in having the same body plan throughout their lives, and even here infants are not just scaled down versions of adults. More commonly, an organism goes through radically different stages in its life cycle. A butterfly, for instance, starts out life as a caterpillar before breaking down all its organs in the chrysalis to develop into something completely different. Each of these forms contains identical genetic information. Logically, then, this information cannot determine which form to build. Furthermore, if the genome were to contain a design for each of these creatures it would need to be twice the size as the genome of an animal without such different stages. This is not the case. 

Reason 9: Designed systems can’t repair themselves. Systems that are created by design and construction, both of which are external to the system, cannot repair themselves. Get a dent in your car and you need a garage to fix it; a damaged protein also can’t mend itself. Yet if you cut your finger it quickly restores itself to its initial state. This inherent, corrective stability is characteristic of all bodily components, and is firm evidence that they are not the products of design.

Reason 10: Development is not construction. Design-based construction involves choosing the right parts and bringing them together in the right configuration. This is what happens on our factory production lines, and how proteins are built from amino acids on the basis of genetic instructions. It is not the way organisms come to exist. Instead they grow and develop, a process fundamentally different from construction that cannot use design-type information to reach its endpoint.

This final reason brings us to one last loophole that the genome might creep through to still claim its omnipotent role. Alongside design-based construction there is a second way of creating things to order: the recipe. This is not a description of the end product, but of the steps to be taken to create it. Perhaps, in addition to coding for proteins, the genome also contains a recipe for building the organism. Unfortunately, this fails to avoid most of the above objections, and introduces an even bigger one: how and where are these steps coded in the genome, and how are the instructions read and followed? Loophole closed. 

With so much simple yet damning evidence against it, why are people still so attached to the idea of the genome as design for the body? One reason is that the genome is, of course, a design. It is also present in every cell and has a visible effect on the body. The most obvious examples are genes for pigment proteins, such as those that determine eye color. Your genes provide a design for your eye pigments, and in doing so determine what color your eyes are. However, this does not mean that the whole complex structure of your eye is determined by genes.

There are, of course, genes that have an effect on development. Meddle with the genes of a fruit fly and you can make legs grow out of their head. Hey presto! But again, let’s not overstate what is happening here. This is not like introducing a new complex feature on the basis of a necessarily equally complex new design. It is simply a matter of causing one of the existing complex features to be in the wrong place. It tells us nothing about how legs are built. 

A second reason is undoubtedly wishful thinking. How nice it would be if there was a design that explained the complex structures of the body! How satisfying to replace some vague divine scheme with a neat scientific physical blueprint. How pleasingly recognizable it would be if organisms, like the artifacts we make, were based on design and construction. 

The alternative, after all, is mind-blowing. Going back to the start of this article, we saw that there are just two ways of making complex systems: design and self-assembly. If there is no design for living organisms, then they must self-assemble. In other words, starting from a single fertilized cell every cell division, the differentiation into different types, the layering of cells into tissues, the twisting and wrapping involved in creating organs, each in just the right place in the body and functioning like a well-oiled machine: all that must just be the result of inherent interactions between component parts, starting at the molecular level with proteins and other compounds harmoniously moving and working together; moving up to cells exchanging information, nudging and jostling into just the right places; the whole thing growing and blossoming, while at every stage being a viable, vibrant, living entity interacting with its environment to obtain the resources it needs to grow; and eventually finding a mate with which to join germ cells to start the whole cycle anew. All this without any kind of design or plan? Ok, we can see how a filigree snowflake can grow without a plan, but a living organism? Surely this is absurd?

As Sherlock Holmes famously said: “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”. We have seen that it is impossible for the genome to constitute a design for the organism, and there is no other design available. Therefore the immense improbability of self-assembly must be the truth. And let’s not forget: this didn’t happen overnight. Our planet was a billion years old before the first self-replicating cells appeared. Even then, with the power of evolution unleashed, it took another two billion years before even the simplest of organisms arose, and another billion before it found ways of building structured bodies with demarcated organs. 

We may marvel at the functional complexity of modern animals and plants, but we can design and build pumps and cameras that work better than our hearts and eyes. The real miracle of life is not the way we work but the fact that our bodies develop and grow from a single cell without needing a design to tell them how to do so. No wonder it took evolution billions of years to learn this trick!

Certainly, the genome has an essential role to play in this process. The cell and the organism depend on it to provide templates for the construction of specific templates where and when these are required. But the inconvenient truth is that this is the only role that the genome has to play. It does not mold living creatures out of the inanimate clay; just sits on the shelf of the metal parts factory, waiting for the next order to come in.

[John Cuthber]

Once again, someone who doesn't understand genetics is saying it's wrong.

[DanielBoyd]

Hi John, Actually, I do understand genetics. Perhaps you could indicate which of my reasons you disagree with, and why?

[swansont]

11 minutes ago, DanielBoyd said:

Hi John, Actually, I do understand genetics. Perhaps you could indicate which of my reasons you disagree with, and why?

For me it starts with “There’s still a lot of energy about that can create interesting structures in defiance of the Second Law.“

Nothing going on here is in defiance of the laws of thermodynamics 

[DanielBoyd]

20 minutes ago, swansont said:

For me it starts with “There’s still a lot of energy about that can create interesting structures in defiance of the Second Law.“

Nothing going on here is in defiance of the laws of thermodynamics 

The Second Law states that entropy can only increase or remain constant (in a closed system). The creation of complex structures constitutes a decrease in entropy. 'Defiance' may be a rather emotive word for a physical process, but it is in any case locally contrary to the Second Law. Of course, entropy in the total system does not decrease, but that's one of the main characteristics of life: the creation of order through the consumption of free energy from the environment. Just like us building cars (though in the end they rust on the scrap heap, so the Second Law has the last laugh).

[Moontanman]

37 minutes ago, DanielBoyd said:

Hi John, Actually, I do understand genetics. Perhaps you could indicate which of my reasons you disagree with, and why?

Actually you are so far off on all of them your not even close enough for why your wrong to be explained. You make completely off thew wall, and i suspect a dishonest creationist source, assumptions at the beginning of each point that are not close enough to even be wrong.

1 minute ago, DanielBoyd said:

The Second Law states that entropy can only increase or remain constant (in a closed system). The creation of complex structures constitutes a decrease in entropy. 'Defiance' may be a rather emotive word for a physical process, but it is in any case locally contrary to the Second Law. Of course, entropy in the total system does not decrease, but that's one of the main characteristics of life: the creation of order through the consumption of free energy from the environment. Just like us building cars (though in the end they rust on the scrap heap, so the Second Law has the last laugh).

The Earth and it's biosphere is not a closed system.. 

[DanielBoyd]

3 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Actually you are so far off on all of them your not even close enough for why your wrong to be explained. You make completely off thew wall, and i suspect a dishonest creationist source, assumptions at the beginning of each point that are not close enough to even be wrong.

The Earth and it's biosphere is not a closed system.. 

I find it odd to suspect a creationist source, when in an opening paragraph I actually denounce intelligent design. 

Nowhere do I claim that the Earth/biosphere is a closed system, nor is that relevant to this discussion. 

I really would be interested in your argument against any one of my reasons. Simply saying they are 'not close enough to even be wrong' is not a worthy rebuttal. 

 

[Moontanman]

6 minutes ago, DanielBoyd said:

I find it odd to suspect a creationist source, when in an opening paragraph I actually denounce intelligent design. 

Nowhere do I claim that the Earth/biosphere is a closed system, nor is that relevant to this discussion. 

I really would be interested in your argument against any one of my reasons. Simply saying they are 'not close enough to even be wrong' is not a worthy rebuttal. 

 

You are correct, I misread your statement but it comes back to your 10 assertions, can you provide a citation for any of them? They do indeed sound like the ravings of a creationist your claim you are not one is meaningless. We see creationists all the time who try to sneak in their agenda by claiming not to be creationists. You made the assertions, it's not our job to disprove them, it's your job to show they are valid... 

Edited June 22, 2019 by Moontanman

[swansont]

14 minutes ago, DanielBoyd said:

The Second Law states that entropy can only increase or remain constant (in a closed system). The creation of complex structures constitutes a decrease in entropy.

Not a closed system.

14 minutes ago, DanielBoyd said:

'Defiance' may be a rather emotive word for a physical process, but it is in any case locally contrary to the Second Law. Of course, entropy in the total system does not decrease,

BINGO! 

 

[Strange]

3 hours ago, DanielBoyd said:

Variations in these proteins are the only information that the genome actually sends out into the world, and this information is not nearly enough to define and distinguish a man from a mantis and a cat from a caterpillar.

You would need to provide some evidence to support this. (Given your apparent lack of understanding, I don’t expect that to be forthcoming.)

3 hours ago, DanielBoyd said:

The best analogy for the genome is the book of blueprints used in a vehicle factory to make the metal parts it needs. 

That is a truly terrible analogy. It would imply there was “a gene for” every part and every variant of the body. Do you really think there is a specific gene for the 2nd joint on the third finger of the left hand?

This ignorance probably explains why you believe the previous point was sensible. 

3 hours ago, DanielBoyd said:

The genome does not determine which of its genes are used and when. 

It very obviously does. Because, as you say, some genes “are only used in specific types of cell” (and often only in specific circumstances). This activation of specific genes is, ultimately, under the control of ... the genome. (I assume you think it is a god that turns the genes on and off as required.)

I can’t be bothered to read more of this ignorant drivel. 

[MigL]

Let me try, John...

Once again, someone who doesn't understand that nobody wants to read a 'wall of text' on an internet forum, has posted one.

[Endy0816]

One area can become lower entropy, while entropy overall still increases. Entirely in accordance with the 2nd law.

You only need separation of some sort. A cell membrane for example.

 

Genome can use a number of tricks to be informationally dense.

Our bodies for instance are space saving modified fractal patterns. Others like how the core code is interpreted can vary based on phenotype, telomere length, etc.

Edited June 23, 2019 by Endy0816
typo

[Ken Fabian]

DanielBoyd - you are not going to get much joy (from people rushing to agree with you) by claiming the mainstream science based understanding of DNA's role is so wrong as to be unworkable. Not here anyway, and especially not objections based on some personal insight into theoretical constraints that somehow make what is happening in your body right now impossible.You've dropped a whole lot of arguments all together on us, each capable of inducing people with varying degrees of understanding of it to disagree with you. Seems like the objections you have are mostly those of incredulity - your not understanding how DNA could perform a particular function seems to be taken to be evidence that it cannot. I suggest that analogies, as useful as they can be to aid understanding, can be misleading and suggest something that can be shown to occur is not possible; DNA is not a blueprint or design as we usually think of them but the parts life is made of - even to individuals and different species as well as specialised cells and organs - are made of multifunctional components; they share more in common than they have differences. Perhaps DNA and associated biochemistry is akin to recipe (which you do mention) or perhaps a string of coded instructions, with a lot of "if-then" branches but it not a recipe either. I don't think every biochemical step along the way is anywhere close to being understood - and for abiogenesis and early evolution, may never be known with certainty - but currently some of the questions you ask (differently framed) are on the way to getting answered.

If you are not seeing divine intervention, do you have any better alternatives for how living biochemistry does what it does? Or are you saying that not only do you not know, it is not possible for anyone to know?

[Dagl1]

7 hours ago, DanielBoyd said:

 

Allright I'll bite a little, but from what I have seen it is mostly a misunderstanding of how DNA works that makes you make these "assumptions". While I do think you have SOME understanding of biology, you seem to not know enough and thus say certain things are impossible.

Reason 1: the genome does contain enough information. Well do you have any evidence for this; cell type specific transcription factors, cryptic transcription start sites, alternative polyadenylation, alternative splicing, post-transcriptional modifications, RNA secondary structures and post-translational modifications lead to a whole lot of diversity, can you give some actual evidence that there is not enough information within the genome or is this just what you believe?

Reason 2: The genome only says how to build parts. If we don't have said fats, or essential vitamins or whatever, then the end products cannot be made, so you can definitely produce blueprints and use things which are not within the blueprints but come from somewhere else. I would like to say that a better analogy is that the genome encodes for tools with specific use-limitations which, when combined with the genome, lead to the production of both the factory and the end products.

Reason 3: The genome does not determine which of its genes are used and when. Yes it does... epigenetic regulation is a result of the tools encoded by the genome, so indirectly the genome contains information for when parts of the genome are to be used. I don't get why you don't think this is the case, for instance CpG islands are encoded by the genome and DNA methylation enzymes, when guided by cell type specific adaptors and/or by lack of transcriptional activity, will methylate these CpG islands which leads to reduced transcription. All of these things are encoded by the genome, right?

Reason 4: The genome cannot guide its products. There's plenty of signals both within the RNA and amino acids (look up nuclear localization signal) which direct proteins, alternatively see the Golgi (which is encoded by the genome) and there's evidence that parts of the DNA codes and/or binding factors/histones lead to chromatin localization within the nucleus (see CTCF and Lamina associated domains, and see super enhancers and transcription factories).

Reason 5: No way of reaching the next level. Take a course in genetic embryology, look up hox genes. I don't want to go and explain all of of biological development but for instance, go look at sonic hedgehog and its influence in the formation of your hands and then tell us why this is not encoded by the genome.

Reason 6: The limited role of developmental proteins. DamID now I have to explain developmental biology anyway; so lets say the genome has a developmental program to turn cell A into cells that proliferate outwards. This program is activated by a signalling protein and the cells will proliferate away from the source of the signalling protein, the further away they are, the less they proliferate. This is how your fingers can grow. Now you may think, why is it only in 1 direction, and there are other gradients with signals coming from closer to your body which signal the cells not to proliferate, and in between each source of the first developmental signal source are inhibitory sources, thereby the cells will only proliferate in the shape of a finger.
This is a super simplified example, but just shows that this can all be done by the genome.

Reason 7: Lack of construction endpoint. Don't get what you mean, the genome encodes for both a functional embryonic cell as well as functioning cells in adults, but we get a functional cell from our mother's egg cells. Just DNA alone would not produce anything, there needs to be a factory present already, which has been evolving for SOME time.

Reason 8: Diversity from the same genome. Why don't you just learn about histone modifications, DNA modifications, post-transcriptional processing and cell-type specific transcription factors, or just take a course in epigenetics before saying this are impossible.

Reason 9: Designed systems can’t repair themselves. Chaperone proteins can sometimes repair themselves, but regardless, your idea of cutting your finger and it"repairing itself" is just plain wrong. The cells die and new cells proliferate filling the gap. You seem very keen on explaining how things work but then you also fundamentally misunderstand certain things...

Reason 10: Development is not construction. Construction of the plans to build things (and when to use them etc), construction of the tools and construction of the required materials is all done by the genome, but these tools then interact further with the genome to change things so that developmental progress is made. See all the other points for a more indepth explanation of this. 

Just learn some biology or at least give real reason why you believe what you believe. You just say "this isn't possible" but then there's soo much evidence that it is possible...

-Dagl

[John Cuthber]

13 hours ago, DanielBoyd said:

Hi John, Actually, I do understand genetics. Perhaps you could indicate which of my reasons you disagree with, and why?

We can start with "Reason 1: The genome does not contain enough information"

It seems to be an attempt at proof by loud assertion.
As a counterpoint, I will simply state the following proof: it works, so it must transmit the information needed.

We can watch the process in other species much more easily. You can readily observe a single fertilized frog's egg growing into a frog (via a tadpole) with no need to nip out of the jam jar  to read the instruction manual.

All the information is in that egg, and essentially the only plausible location within the egg is the DNA.
You might make noises about mitochondrial DNA, but all that does is marginally expand the definition of "genome".

I could go on and point out other problems but that's your job.

It's a pity you failed to do it.

BTW, I'm really hoping you are going to say that God, by some mechanism, provides the additional guidance.
Because, if that was true, any gestational defect would be proof of the fallibility of God.

Edited June 23, 2019 by John Cuthber

[Strange]

15 hours ago, DanielBoyd said:

Therefore the immense improbability of self-assembly must be the truth.

Self-assembly plays a role. For example, the genes do not (directly) tell proteins/enzymes how to fold in order to have the correct function; it is determined by the protein itself: it folds itself as it forms. A basic example of self-assembly. 

Self-assembly also plays a role in cell differentiation and embryo development. 

It probably also played a critical role in “pre-biotic evolution” (abiogenesis).

So the idea it is “immensely improbable” is either a straw man or another demonstration of your ignorance. 

15 hours ago, DanielBoyd said:

It does not mold living creatures out of the inanimate clay

This is so vague, it impossible to tell if it is (yet) another straw man or “not even wrong.”

[Yan Shyla]

Ok, I have a PhD in genetics, This is just false, I respect your opinion but PLEASE DO MORE RESEARCH BEFORE YOU STATE SOMETHING. 

[Dagl1]

24 minutes ago, Yan Shyla said:

Ok, I have a PhD in genetics, This is just false, I respect your opinion but PLEASE DO MORE RESEARCH BEFORE YOU STATE SOMETHING. 

While I presume it is pointed towards the OP, this kind of response is extremely unhelpful. He will obviously retort with; "well what part of what I said is wrong & you are just using your authority to say something without even bothering to state any arguments". 
I agree that the OP should do a lot more research before stating something, but I feel like this just invites him to go on a tangent how people won't actually debate his arguments.

 

[Curious layman]

It was posted in the wrong one. She's new. It was meant to be in the -Is my dad my real dad. Sorry, she was replying to me ( I think)

5 minutes ago, Dagl1 said:

While I presume it is pointed towards the OP, this kind of response is extremely unhelpful. He will obviously retort with; "well what part of what I said is wrong & you are just using your authority to say something without even bothering to state any arguments". 
I agree that the OP should do a lot more research before stating something, but I feel like this just invites him to go on a tangent how people won't actually debate his arguments.

 

 

Edited June 23, 2019 by Curious layman

[John Cuthber]

15 minutes ago, Dagl1 said:

While I presume it is pointed towards the OP, this kind of response is extremely unhelpful. He will obviously retort with; "well what part of what I said is wrong & you are just using your authority to say something without even bothering to state any arguments". 
I agree that the OP should do a lot more research before stating something, but I feel like this just invites him to go on a tangent how people won't actually debate his arguments.

 

In  fairness to Jan Shyla, they posted pretty much the same thing I did and I got a couple of rep points for it.
 

[Dagl1]

Just now, John Cuthber said:

In  fairness to Jan Shyla, they posted pretty much the same thing I did and I got a couple of rep points for it.
 

True, but at least later you added some arguments, regardless though I think that if we can't bother to answer at least somewhat in detail, we should rather not say anything. At first I was like; "Ugh this guy... is just wrong, but its soo much effort to go over everything" but then I realized that it doesn't help anyone if I do that and also kind of defeats the purpose of a forum on which things are debated.

-Dagl

[John Cuthber]

1 minute ago, Dagl1 said:

True, but at least later you added some arguments,

Perhaps Jan Shyla was planning to add some later.

It took me 14 hours or so to get round to it.
Also, re.

21 minutes ago, Curious layman said:

you are just using your authority to say something without even bothering to state any arguments"

Well, that's what authority is for.

[Curious layman]

I have no recollection of typing that!!!!

2 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Perhaps Jan Shyla was planning to add some later.

It took me 14 hours or so to get round to it.
Also, re.

Well, that's what authority is for.

 

And that's not the quote I picked!!! Is something wrong with the site ?

Edited June 23, 2019 by Curious layman

[Dagl1]

2 minutes ago, Curious layman said:

I have no recollection of typing that!!!!

 

3 minutes ago, John Cuthber said:

Perhaps Jan Shyla was planning to add some later.

It took me 14 hours or so to get round to it.
Also, re.

Well, that's what authority is for.

Pretty sure that is what I said;p 

I understand that authority can be used, but its also kinda cheap and even among experts of certain topics people can disagree, thus it is, in my opinion, pretty pointless to just shout out: SEE WHAT I HAVE ACCOMPLISHED, YOU ARE WRONG. 

[John Cuthber]

16 minutes ago, Curious layman said:

I have no recollection of typing that!!!!

 

You didn't.

It's a quote glitch

 

44 minutes ago, Dagl1 said:

you are just using your authority to say something without even bothering to state any arguments

That's what authority is for.

It's to save you the trouble of regurgitating all the stuff you learned during the course of training.

It's so that when the doctor says "take these pills" you don't waste his time asking why.