You are the one not paying attention. I didn't argue about the existence of evolution. I just asked what difference does it make to us now what somebody believes about it if that happens over millions of years where any generation of humans cannot even affect, witness or observe it. The hybrids we "engineered" cannot reproduce themselves, so they are a dead-end in the evolution. We could not even affect the mutation of viruses or bacteria.
Except that we cannot prove definitely that those fossils really evolved from one to another or were separate species to begin with where the ones with less ability to adapt to changing environment died out and the others survived. Heck, not long ago the common scientific view was that humans evolved from monkeys or apes. Now the common view is that we represent separate evolutionary chains. Who knows what scientist will say 10 year from now?
Certainly some fossils on this NG might think that.
You are wrong. Speciation has been observed in action. Evolution has been observed in action, including flu and tuberculosis etc. "engineered hybrids" can of course indeed reproduce.
"what difference does it make"? I could argue that there is the danger that, if too many people think like you do, some will get into positions of power and make dangerous decisions. Someone, somewhere will decide that diseases cannot evolve so what is the point of funding flu vaccines development predicated on this very assumption?
But really it is just good to know what is true, to do our best to find out what is actually true and what is not.
And I was giving you an example of it happening within a human lifetime, and having a very real and immdediate effect.
What makes you think that?
ation of
Craig Venter has built an artificial bacterium genome from scratch.
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Science never proves anything definitely, but it can show that this hypothesis is consistent with everything we know, and is a much better explanation than any other explanation that anybody has come up with.
You clearly don't know what scientists were saying back when Charles Darwin got the ball rolling, and haven't got much of an idea of what they are saying now.
The official formulation always was that the great apes and human had a fairly recent common ancestor - we now know that this was somewhere between 7 and 14 million years ago - and that the common ancestor of monkeys. apes and humans lived quite a bit earlier - we now that this was more than 20 million years ago, and probably not more than about
40 million years ago.
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Not exactly a banality - you clearly don't appreciate how little you know.
Not really. You want to carry on about what you think that Democrats ought to believe, and in the process you've ignored what they actually do believe.
I certainly believe that, and I'd probably vote Democrat if I had a vote in the US. I don't believe that it happens in every situation, and I do believe that the free market has to be regulated and adjusted so that it actually does happen most of the time.
Social Darwinists think that it happens all the time, in every situation and don't see the necessity for measures like anti-trust legislation, anti-child-labour laws and the like. This is an over- simplification.
A fatuous extrapolation.
In reality, they place their faith in interactions that you can't be bothered to comprehend. You ought to be bright enough to see the necessity for anti-trust legislation, child-labour laws and so forth, but you prefer to keep the debate confined to zippy one-liners.
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Bill Sloman, Sydney
And I thought in his re-introduction to the group that Sloman would stick to
on-topic ELECTRONIC matters, and keep politics and snide remarks out. Sigh.
He must always prove that he is right and everyone else is wrong. Poor
thing.
Tom, Louisville
We have not documented it progressing to the point of speciation. We have documented natural selection in the wild driving _population_ phenotype (appearance) to complete color dominance toward one color then back. We have been breeding all of our associated animals and flowering plants (and yes mushrooms as well) for thousands of years to get the properties we want.
Why should I? Very few of the regular posters restrict themselves in this way.
Well, post something that proves I'm wrong. I've got lots of opinions, and some of them have got to be wrong.
If you can find one, and convincing evidence that demonstates that the opinion is wrong, I'll have been educated, and you'll have scored a point. In the meantime, what you've posted isn't exactly useful criticism.
Engineered hybrids, huh? That means humans as the engineers right? So who engineered all the evolution before humans? Besides, I was thinking of higher species, not mutation of some bacteria or virae.
Danger is more likely in the other way around. Consider those Nazi experiments, for instance.
Yes, we have but we were not always around. So how did they evolve without us then? Besides, what you list here did not result in new species, just a variation of the same ones. Like the different dogs that are still just dogs.
Actually, I started this thread and asked why Higgs boson is also referred in the popular media as The Good Particle. The thread then degenerated into a theist-atheist debate where the majority of atheists claimed that belief in God is contrary to good science. But I still haven't seen a good argument why that should be so. There are plenty of scientists who believe in a Supreme Being, or whatever you want to call it. Yet such belief does not hinder them in their research. One of them was Mendel in the 19th century Germany or Austria, the pioneer of genetics.
Consult Darwin. He spelled out the mechanism, if perhaps in less detail than would allow American fundamentalists to get the message.
Species are defined as groups that don't interbreed. The differences that stop them interbreeding can be subtle, but if you want an Irish wolf-hound to interbreed with a dachshund you may have to do quite a bit of facilitation.
It isn't. But scientists can't believe in God as a scientific hypothesis. There's no reproducible evidence for His existence. They are perfectly entitled to an irrational belief in his existence, just like any other believer.
s.
So what. There are beliefs that are scientificly defensible, and a lot more that aren't. It's probably safer to base political decisions that affect all of us on beliefs that are evidence-based and scientificly defensible, but this is a democracy, and everybody can believe what they like, not matter how silly some of the beliefs are.
They are only assumed to be atheists by knuckle dragging American Bible thumpers. The nearest to an evidence based scientific position based on the limited evidence available for the existence of a deity is agnostic.
That doesn't stop scientists believing or not.
The earliest use of the term seems to have been as the title of a popular science particle physics book by Lederman & Teresi in 1993 with shades of HHGG. A bit like with "Big Bang" the moniker has stuck.
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Plenty of famous scientists and mathematicians have been or still are religious. Polkinghorne has probably written one of the more balanced accounts of religious faith and its influence on scientists.
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It is the YEC loons denying geochronology and cosmology that are trying to prove the world is 6000 years old that you have to watch out for.
the evolution of human choices, possibility, and behavior, as well as the diversity those things depend on.
Cool! I've been spending too much time around Democrat politicians.
Well, I didn't know you were a Democrat. From our discussion on Obamacare, it certainly *seems* you're not comfortable trusting people to make their own choices.
In particular, you're arguing for a system whose organizing principle is compulsion, optimized by intelligent design (by non-expert non- participants), and whose compulsions are based on political gain for those compelling. Contrast this with a system organized by free choice and optimized by the evolutionary pressure of the individuals making those choices, a free market. The gov't makes sure no one cheats you, but you can choose as you please.
When I look to our medical care system I fully see how external pressure after external pressure from Congress shaped it from what it was into what it is today. (People will jump through a lot of hoops for tax free income.) Evolution.
If doctors advertised prices and people actually had to pay, the cost of ordinary care would plummet. That would fix 2/3rds of what ails us. That's my faith in organic, self-organizing, self-optimizing systems. (And in distributed intelligence, the common wisdom if you will.) It works in natural system after natural system.
I agree with most of your intentions, really. I just don' t think people understand where this new health regulation law takes us, which is toward the problems instead of away. The best solutions to a problem this big with this many facets are not found in the hands of a single bureaucrat--the HHS secretary--or in the 15-member IPAB (politically-appointed Medicare cut panel), but in the wisdom and choices of the people.
ey reject the evolution of human choices, possibility, and behavior, as wel l as the diversity those things depend on.
Acknowledged, and I think that's where the people and the nation are, mostly. Just not the leaders today. Certainly not BHO or his HHS Sec'y.
The question posed to me was which brand of politician would deny evolution, so that's what I was responding to. The current leaders have no faith in us, they believe in intelligent design, and have selected themselves as the designers. They're not leaders, they're ruling us. Literally, with rules. Dumb ones.
Of course. People aren't and should not be free to do something that hurts someone else. But, my choosing not to buy drug counseling insurance or pre-natal visits for me personally--that doesn't hurt anyone. Literally. No one.
This is exactly the problem: the People Who Know Better((c)(Dr. Phil Hobbs, Esq.)) did that and lots more, in this case with tax policy. Regulation. Obamacare likewise creates huge economic dislocations and swarms of Obamacare refugees.
A decent article--an actuarial study--yesterday projects premiums will rise 32%, average. But the damage is worse than that (and that's not even counting the non-financial effects).
I spent (wasted) part of yesterday reading more of the new Obamacare regs. OMG. If people really understood this, there's no way they'd support it. It's an enormous takeover and attempt to micromanage to the smallest detail, by people who have no idea whatsoever what they're doing.
The HHS estimates estimate--over and over again--barely more total compliance time-cost for the nation, in some cases, than I just spent personally just reading their document! Are these people insane?
Yes. Absolutely. But, if my work is to be confiscated, I may join them in their decision (minus the drinking thing--too many calories).
As President Obama said, at some point haven't you made enough money? Yes, actually. So, I'll deliberately lower my income to avoid supporting Obamacare. If I'm to be forced, I'll resist. It's my right, and it makes financial sense too. Besides, there's no point working harder for that last extra dollar, trading my last, most precious remaining free time for fewer and fewer dollars. I can read a book instead.
I know sooo many making the same plans who feel the same way. Does that help America? It's so much better if you create a safe place with reasonable rules, then let people pursue their dreams--that's what made America great.
I don't really think there's a danger with respect to disease. Human origin is another issue--people separate and treat matters of faith and science as distinct questions.
I really think there's a far greater danger in political philosophy, when a Barack Obama, with very little real-world experience other than political protest, deigns design our energy, medical, financial systems, distribution of wealth, and more.
That is, when he denies evolution and adaptive optimization based on free choice, and substitutes his own intelligent design.
Those things have the potential to destroy a society, and quickly.
A lot less dangerous than it would be to have James Arthur, who only pays attention to evidence he likes, trying to do the same job.
This is a matter of opinion - in James Arthur's case, ill-informed and biased opinion.
They always have. Society is always vulnerable to people who are convinced that they are right, and prepared to ignore any evidence that disagrees with their point of view. From my perspective, James Arthur looks a lot more dangerous than Barak Obama - happily, James Arthur is a lot further from the levers of power than Barak Obama. The Tea Party Republicans look a lot too much like James Arthur for comfort, and they are much too close to the levers of power for any rational observer to sleep easily at night.
ey reject the evolution of human choices, possibility, and behavior, as wel l as the diversity those things depend on.
ea
an
Curiously, in every other advanced industrial country, health care is organised in a way which James Arthur finds too centralised and inflexible, and still manages to come out cheaper per head than the bizarre and un-natural system in use in the US.
The UK model provides adequate health care for everybody at half the US price per head, and the French and German systems care for everybody at about the same level as the US system cares for the fully insured at two thirds of the price per head.
If James Arthur stopped obseesing about ideological purity and followed the evidence for a bit, he might post a little less nonsense.
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