failure

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

I know what PR is; I don't understand what YOU wrote.

But your nation is divided into two implacably antagonistic and embittered political camps, according to what we read here about Dumbocrats and Repugnicans.

Look at all the clag thrown at GWB. I shouldn't think there is another current head of state that is so deeply despised by half the population. Maybe Arial Sharon.

I read in sci.electronics.design that Keith Williams wrote (in ) about 'failure', on Thu, 29 Sep 2005:

Are they unusually incompetent then, or is it the absence of pork that disappoints you?

Where do they stand on the left-to-right political axis (or off it along the imaginary axis)?

I read in sci.electronics.design that Robert Latest wrote (in ) about 'failure', on Thu, 29 Sep 2005:

Nothing if the composition is 45% Lilacs, 40% Puces, 10% greys, 5% Indigos.

The trouble with PR is that it tends to balkanize parties, so you get

Well, if nobody is interested in discussing the idea, I sure am.

You can't brainstorm in a room full of fuddy-duddies, or people to whom the most important thing is to be right.

John

I don't, either. And I don't recall ever reading that such a thing takes place. But it wouldn't surprise me to find bits of RNA released in sticky proteins.

Which is my point about why it's not really comparable. Not so?

But it is a different mechanism. Which is why I said what I did.

Jon

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

That's unfair! I went on to explain why.

I don't think RNA makes plasmids. And 'go beyond' is not right; genetic adaptation in higher animals occurs through sex, which bacteria don't indulge in. So they NEED another way.

No, it's not beyond; it's just another mechanism. The 'fast rate' is simply due to the short time between cell divisions (a few minutes) compared with the time it takes higher animals to reproduce.

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

I just have this tiny suspicion that there's much more to the story than that. (;-)

One could almost say that we animals were created by bacteria in order to move them about from food source to food source. ;)

I don't think it is abandoned, precisely. Mitochondria is said to be some evidence of it, I think. But it's just assuming a meaningful comparison between bacteria, by which plasmids are a dominant source of variations and mixed with random mutation, with humans where they are not in similar proportions, seems misguided to me.

I'm open to being wrong on that point. It just seemed fraught with peril.

Jon

Why should DNA _know_ about extinction, which itself only arises a macro-concept in our own minds and not as a real observable at the level of DNA or selection processes? Or by what method might it be observable?

Perhaps, assuming that DNA _could_ observe such a thing as potential extinction of other DNA with which it might continue itself sexually. But I don't know of such a mechanism and you haven't proposed one.

What is the proposed mechanism, except for your argument that if such a one did exist that it would hypothetically be useful?

Put another way, what is the detailed evidence are you considering that isn't explained by modern evolutionary theory and is explained by this (not new) idea you are proposing. Why is it needed?

I don't think there is objective science meaning to _clever_.

In any case, your suggestion doesn't seem at all convincing. I think you need to work on the details.

Jon

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

I'm not sure what you mean by 'free votes'. If that is clarified, I'll try to answer.

I read in sci.electronics.design that Keith Williams wrote (in ) about 'failure', on Thu, 29 Sep 2005:

So how on earth did he get elected? Do you have a local hotbed of nihilists?

Sanders is probably working the strings.

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

I think the evolutionary mechanism which resulted in beta-lactamse was a BIG surprise and is still not fully understood. So perhaps you ARE DNA, rather than Genome!

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

DNA doesn't. Beyond (properly used) the genome is the proteome - the galaxy of proteins produced in a life-form. It's this that has the detailed developmental control of stem cells that results in differentiation in the embryo.

It isn't. It is immensely more complicated that the genome.

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

OK, yes, we do have free votes in Parliament on social issues from time to time. Usually the decision to have a free vote is negotiated between the party whips 'behind the Speaker's chair'. But sometimes, one party allows its members a free vote while others don't. Toys tend to get thrown out of prams on such occasions.

Well, then, if "Democracy" won the election, isn't that Mission Accomplished? ;-)

BTW, the more things change, the more they stay the same:

Cheers! Rich

Not beforehand, though. The point isn't that we can examine the results and see that extinction appears to have taken place, after it has already occurred. The question I'm asking is how does this feed back into a specific species _before_ the event occurs...

After all, you did say this (which I must re-insert, again):

A _threat_ isn't an accomplishment, after the fact. It's an anticipation of a macro-scale concept. So, what is your proposal about how an individual organism and its DNA recognize such a situation?

So far as I'm aware of what anyone has been able to show, DNA doesn't _design_ for anticipated situations. It is randomly mutated and, in the context of all other life and chemistry in the local environment that may impinge, works through natural selection on what's left.

So, do you mean to say that because you don't understand the details (it is "complex and interactive") that this is a sufficient justification to you?

I'll grant that DNA isn't conscious. And, once mutated in a fashion that yields expressed traits that can be operated upon by the local environment through natural selection, "adaptation" can be used to encompass the idea. But that is word we create to describe the upshot of a detailed process, which in fact knows nothing about our contrived concepts to help us think about complexity.

Yes. If you retreating to Darwinian theory here, then what is novel and uniquely explained about what you are saying? I'm not sure, by this comment, whether you are proposing something new, at all. Are you?

In other words, it's all magic to you.

That isn't the point. What is the point is about proposing the idea that a macro concept, such as anticipating a threatened extinction can be provided as a feedback mechanism. You haven't proposed any mechanism for this and you haven't shown any reason why such an idea is needed, because existing theory fails in some important way.

You seem to say that because a system is admittedly complex and beyond your detailed ken, that this is sufficient justification for believing that DNA is somehow unconsciously inventive and able to direct that invention towards the idea of avoiding extinction.

I don't find that a good argument. Sorry.

Your feelings notwithstanding, what you wrote isn't quantitative and cannot be evaluated. It has no objective meaning and doesn't support what you are saying, one way or another.

Make a plausible case that it is possible within the context of current knowledge, then. I've not seen one. If all you mean is that if one is sufficiently ignorant about something, that many things may then _seem_ possible at that moment -- then, sure. Ignorance allows many beliefs, and I've no argument for that.

But it's a waste of time worrying about ideas where the claimant cannot even be bothered to make a good case, except by way of general ignorance about the details.

No, that's _your_ point. You've repeated it many times, as though coming up with an idea is everything to you. As anyone in business knows, John (and I've been self-employed longer than you, I suspect), it's the sweat after the idea that makes it successful.

Some folks imagine that all they need to do is come up with a great idea and others will beat a path to their door. But that is pretty rare, really. Ideas are usually just a dime a dozen. The truth is that even these must be winnowed through to find some that are reasonably good. And that isn't enough. There is prioritizing of what remains of those, so that the tiny amount of real capital and effort that exists can be better applied to the ones that have honest potential. And then, of course, there is all the actual practice it takes to achieve the product.

And that's business, not science. In science, all that is magnified. Theories evolve, very much like the evolution of life on earth. Someone comes up with an imaginative idea and couches it into language that is sufficient for rigorous deductions to specific circumstances can be made. These are then tested, quantitatively. Most of them are destroyed by the process. Only a very few survive. You can equate the imagination to "mutation" here. And the process of ignoring ideas that cannot be couched rigorously or which cannot survive testing later on, if they can be made sufficiently quantitative to be tested, as the "natural selection" part. Like most random mutations, most ideas won't survive the ordeal.

I'm not telling you imagination is bad to have. I'm just saying I don't care much about it, unless you can show me why _your_ imagination here is worth listening to. And that takes knowledge and evidence.

I'm challenging you to produce that. Your response seems to be to ask why anyone should doubt the quality and power of _your_ imagination on this subject. And my response to that is to say, "ho hum." I don't see what you see or how it applies and I'm telling you that you need to make a much better case for yourself, than you seem to care to do.

Imagination isn't "uber alles," you know. It's a great ingredient. But you seem to think that just having an imaginative idea is the same as having an explanatory idea. They aren't the same thing.

Well, have at it. But carry though.

Anyway, we've gotten way off-track. To bring this all back, explain to me why it is that you appear to believe that DNA has some means _other_ than random mutations for coming up with altering itself when "the host is threatened with extinction."

I won't apologize for remaining unconvinced by your very poor argument, so far. That's not my fault, but yours.

Jon

Yup, we're just DNA's way of making more DNA. ;-)

It has also been said, humans were created by water to transport itself uphill. ;-)

Cheers! Rich

Ok. They are by *definition* illegal. That's enough to box 'em up and send 'em back. ...postage due.

Please tell me that no one is this stupid.

Ah hell, even the Yankees and Red Sox fans hate each other. They're not only in the same league, but the same division. ...damned yankees!