failure

Meaning anyone with a different point of view is ignorant so you get to be nasty as you please.

- YD.

A bridge too far.

- YD.

Which, on first blush, might seem like Lamarck's theory where "need" (stress, in some sense) yields adaptation that is inheritable. But it actually might be that you just think some stresses may lead to oxidants or other chemical fragments encouraging mutations of some kind. You say there is evidence for this. Let's start with that. I'm not disagreeing, but what evidence are you referring to when you said that?

Now assuming you can support that point, I'd then like to know how you imagine that said stresses should encourage the direction of mutations to somehow _point_ towards a useful adaptation (which seems to be a broader point of yours), instead of away from such useful adaptations or just at random relative to them.

You said your idea is "likely" and, as I read you, you've used it to justify other conclusions as though it were fact to you. It helps to be able to put things in perspective and to realize where more diligence is really needed before becoming too invested in the idea. You could start by getting at that evidence you referred to about increased mutations in light of stress (I'm hopeful you will be able to present the evidence you believe is there) and then describe why those mutations would then more likely "point" in the direction of useful adaptations.

Bias projection.

Jon

It's not stupid. Once you get on to the 'illegal' side of the law, you become a victim of all sorts of scams and threats, because if you rebel, you will be shopped to the authorities. It's the same with drugs; one way people get on to hard drugs is through being threatened by a dealer, 'Buy the coke or we'll tell the cops you've got hash.'

It's the other way round. MPs are heavilly pressured to vote on party lines at imes of certain very important votes. Even then it's not unknown for some to abstain or vote against their party on personal grounds.

Graham

Or, as Roger Miller said in one of his country comedy songs: "You can't roller skate in a buffalo herd, but you can be happy if you've a mind to." ;-)

Why is my suggestion daft? I suppose that you assume either

1. DNA is incapable of performing such basic feats of chemistry, even though it can build a hummingbird.

or

1. This facility would not be useful to an organism.

or

1. Some other reason I can't imagine; please explain.

John

Of course. The genome is the manager, and, like any sensible manager, hires grunts to do the heavy lifting. That increases my respect for the cleverness of DNA.

John

Given the different ideas of what constitutes left/ right over your side, that probably puts him a bit to the right of John Woodgate..

No equivalent of PPG16 over there then? Here, archaeological assessment of sites prior to development is compulsory, if not always effective. But then, we don't think of our neolithic ancestors' artifacts as "someone else's history".

Paul Burke

Or to put it another way, genes don't act in isolation, they hunt in packs.

Paul Burke

I read in sci.electronics.design that Richard the Dreaded Libertarian wrote (in ) about 'failure', on Fri,

Hardly, when the bombings continue. If they stopped, the troops COULD go home.

Quite, but it isn't ALWAYS wrong to leap to the defence of people far from home. And you can't write a satirical song that supports ANYTHING.

No more godlike than Conway's Game of Life, or the Mandelbrot set, but with the added feature of replication and self-modification. I didn't use the word "intentionally" intentionally, because of course all sorts of people who like to jump on things would jump on it. But why shouldn't DNA possess the ability to synthesize new genes? Who made up the rule that DNA is not allowed to use very complex meta-mechanisms, that it's restricted to local, random base-pair mutations to evolve? And who is going to enforce the rule?

Honestly, there are people here who admire Windows and disdain DNA.

John

Answer is simple: it doesn't. That's why organisms don't evolve look- ahead mechanisms by genetic selection. However, there IS a mechanism, which developed by accident but survived because it proved useful, that protects to a certain extent variations which are currently not advantageous, but could become such if conditions changed. It's called the recessive gene.

Paul Burke

If it's not impossible, merely incredibly unlikely, I refer you to your own "big enough chemistry set" argument.

Besides, the Game of Life can produce incredible replicating structures if cells are seeded randomly; the big chemistry set again.

John

"They" isn't an entity. Some want the soldiers to go and use a lot of force to accomplish that - but many more would like to see at least some force that stops the chaos that appeared the last year.

It is a pity the invasion achieved so little in real terms - a barbaric leader ousted, but chaos and terrorism in its place.

Not suprising if one sees that all the old power structures were disbanded immediately and afterwards there was mostly distrust of the new police force by the occupiers.

Some point: insuffiecient weapons, plastic helmets - seems someone was afraid to give useful tools to the new Iraqi police.

Distrust and hate displayed to the occupied people is not a way to build bridges and trust either.

The Dutch were in a much more quiet area of Iraq - but they managed to drive slowly in open trucks with guns pointed down. One manages to make more friends that way than racing around in tanks and blowing up cars that don't somehow missed your control points.

Thomas

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

Yes, they are *expected* to, but they can choose not to, and quite often do.

It shouldn't be; a person joins a political party because he agrees with the broad spectrum of political opinions of that party. But there are bound to be differences of opinion between individuals, and if a difference gets important enough, the MP either absents himself, abstains or votes with the other side.

The good thing is that if each party has made their programs clear there must a a party to cater for everyone's combination of wishes.

You'd hope - and it works that way sometimes - that parliament forms ad-hoc coalitions to achieve what is a minor point but lives with a majority of voters. If there are only two parties their goals just cannot be congruent to that of the voters.

OTOH it is better than referenda - where voters vote on single issue (yes, lower taxes - yes, free heathcare, yes, more safety, yes, more freedom...)

A two-party system must - by game theory - lead to two parties that near identical. Guessing the number of beans in a jar - if there are just two parties, and I say 1000, but you think 'many more' - you will say 1001. If more players will follow it does make sens for you to vote for what you think is the real result.

Thomas

What happens in reality is that you get fragile coalitions and minority governments that can achieve very little. And an election every 18 months. See Italy before Burlesconi.