failure

Which makes it ok how ?

Graham

I read in sci.electronics.design that Spehro Pefhany wrote (in ) about 'failure', on Wed,

Yes, quite right. But that's with hindsight. In 1917, we were getting to the end of the 'War to end all wars'. The rise of Nazism, and Fascism generally, was almost 10 years ahead, and WW II was 22 years ahead. It's hardly surprising that Balfour didn't anticipate them.

Given, on the other hand, an extended period of peace following 1918, a solution that didn't create the same situation as after the Battle of Jericho might have been worked out.

I read in sci.electronics.design that John Larkin wrote (in ) about 'failure', on Wed,

It's fundamentally anti-democratic! It creates an oligarchy.

I don't know what you mean by that.

Only if conditions remain stable. In fact, when conditions are stable, it's precisely what we get. The common forms of adaptation in stable conditions are the slow arms race between predator and prey, and the slow changes caused by mating preferences- if you like, gazelles' long legs and peacocks' feathers.

A change in environment. The conditions to which they adapted (and specialised) have changed. An opportunity for the less specialised to flourish. Empty ecological niches to colonise. Straightforward Darwin. Galapagos.

The opposite is true. Evolutionary theory provides the 'agency'- natural selection. Once the slots are filled for those conditioons, change is much slower, as long as conditions are stable. And remember that in the highly- compressed fossil record, "suddenly" can be a few million years.

Paul Burke

I read in sci.electronics.design that Spehro Pefhany wrote (in ) about 'failure', on Wed,

Possibly, if the minority is centrist or mildly blue or pink. But some minorities are off the left-right axis in the 'imaginary' direction. Greens, in many countries, for example.

In Israel, the influence of the far-right religious parties PREVENTS sensible things being done by ether Likhud or Labour.

I read in sci.electronics.design that Jonathan Kirwan wrote (in ) about 'failure', on Wed,

Yes, they are.

I don't think so. What would be the mechanism?

That can happen.

In some cases, yes. But developing beta-lactamase (that disables many anti-biotics) involves a genetic change, and that doesn't happen by plasmid exchange.

The role of the oil pipelines, Orde Wingate and the arming of the Jewish defence units to protect the pipeline by preventing and retaliating for Arab raids makes an interesting history. Oil once again.

Paul Burke

The bigger the mutation, the less likely it is to survive. This really is gale-in-a-scrapyard stuff. Until demonstrated, there's no need to assume it's possible. It's not needed anyway.

The 'species' is viewed by evolutionary scientists as a snapshot in a dynamic situation. You can only really see speciation in hindsight. Every individual in a species is different, genetically, from every other, so is potentially the 'start' of a new speciation branch.

When a community is isolated from the rest of the species, selection works on the subset of the gene pool present, and may lead to startling changes in appearance without affecting cross- fertility with the main community. Think of dogs.

If the community's isolation is subsequently breached, it will normally be re- absorbed. If on the other hand it is maintained, over time subsequent changes may lead to cross- sterility and the recognition of the community as a different species.

Paul Burke

Nononono, the IC is the doctrine that she was BORN without original sin. It's HER conception, not that of Jesus.

Paul Burke

That means that parties get MPs based on how many votes they get nation-wide, even if they can't win any single regional election. So the Purples might have a few reps, just because they won 4% of the national vote. Silly idea.

The US seems to have settled into a pretty stable, nearly balanced,

John

The classic definition was that individuals belonged to a common species if they could successfully mate. That was politically inconvenient, as it limited the power of The Endangered Species Act to seize economic control to the desired extent. Here in the US, there's no clear definition of species any more; something like "any localized population with some distinguishable feature or genetic profile" or perhaps "any local population."

One of my kids is a PhD botanist, and she can't define "species" in any conclusive way.

One major constuction project here was delayed months, at the cost of

John

We have two baseball leagues, and two football leagues, too.

John

If I were DNA, I'd have subsystems that actually analyze antibiotics that are killing me, and synthesize antidotes, and file the recipes in my genome for future reference.

Bacteria and higher forms do exchange DNA. One mechanism is by viruses.

Since we have to compete with bacteria for our very lives, and we are descended from them, why would we abandon any useful mechanism?

John

At any construction site here, if somebody digs up a bone, they hide it fast!

John

If you consider the definition of "species" to be "non-technical", then I cheerfully accept your point.

John

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 20:32:26 -0700, Jim Thompson wrote in Msg.

Meaning, let's exterminate anything non-US before it can turn anti-US?

robert

I don't know. Nobody knows, except for the simplest operations, like using transcsriptase to synthesize a protein. But how does DNA differentiate a few essentially identical cells into the structure of an eyeball? That can't be simple. And DNA has had as long a time to evolve intricate control mechanisms as it has had to evolve eyeballs.

Since experts don't understand 0.1% of how DNA works, and I don't understand 0.01%, seems to me I have almost as much right to speculate as they do.

John

That's the heart of my conjecture: why should DNA wait for slow random mutations to alter an organism (its host) when the host is threatened with extinction? Any creature that had superior adaptive mechanisms would win, so evolution at some point must look on itself, the very mechanisms of evolution, as something to be worked on.

So it becomes a software issue, high-level self-modifying algorithms, not just cosmic rays and wet stuff.

There's nothing mystical here: DNA need not be conscious to be clever.

John

That's not what "Darwinian evolution" means - there is no requirement of "optimization". You can think of species as being group of blind people wandering around on a hilly landscape, where people are trying to get to the highest point. They will often settle at the top of a local peak - there is no way to call it "optimal" or to know if it is the highest peak. Sometimes people will go off for a wander (random mutation) - they might get lost in the valleys (die), or find a new hill (become a new species). Sometimes the landscape changes, killing off some species and causing others to find new hills and diversify.

There are plenty of examples of evolutionary lines that have died out because of being too specialised. Often this is due to mating preferences rather than survival as an individual - "survival of the fittest" means survival of the species, not the individual. There are examples of bird species whose mating rituals are so long and complex, and the mates so fussy, that they regularly simply fail to find successful mates, so that even though there are still a fair number of adults left, there are no new generations. The sabre-toothed tiger had a big problem as a species in that mating preferences selected for larger and larger teeth - to the point that they had great difficulty surviving individually because their teeth were too big.

DNA is not, in itself, "intelligent" or "smart". It has developed and changed over time - there are species that have just RNA rather than DNA, and there are different species that manipulate their DNA in different ways. Different species have different building blocks made from their DNA - while we think of proteins being made from a "standard" set of 20 amino acids, there are other species that use slightly different sets (albeit with most amino acids in common).

Evolution is, for the most part, a slow process - and changing something as fundamental as the DNA would be even slower. It is unlikely that a minor change will lead to major improvement, so there is little chance of serious changes occurring.