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Life goes on without 'vital' DNA
New Scientist ^ | 6/4/04 | Sylvia Pagán Westphal

Posted on 06/04/2004 8:08:18 AM PDT by Michael_Michaelangelo

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To: AntiGuv
I would probably invent some supernatural fantasy

You don't think we already have enough of those retarding the growth of mankind?

61 posted on 06/04/2004 11:10:39 AM PDT by ASA Vet (The "FreeRepublic French" would rather our grandchildren decide which culture is to survive.)
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To: ASA Vet
Well..yes. But my supernatural fantasy would actually be at least vaguely consistent with observed reality.. =) It would also be a heck of a lot more civilized.
62 posted on 06/04/2004 11:31:44 AM PDT by AntiGuv (When the countdown hits zero - something's gonna happen..)
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To: Physicist
Oh, dear! It appears your jailers are making you parade around with your underpants on your head, for the whole world to see. How humiliating to be forced to show what nobody was supposed to see

Ad Hominem befits you. And I do read. You evidently don't. I have posted this for years. I have also posted Dr. Shapiro's comments from ISCID.

Yaakov
Hi James, It seems to me that what you are saying throws out Darwinian(or NeoDarwinian) theory of evolution as the "major" means of evolution of life on Earth and now this 21st century evolution sees a much more elegant and orgerly mechanism to induce a guided development of life when needed. Do I understand your propositions correctly

Masciarelli
My wild question: Jim wrote: "cells are capable of altering their genomes in non-random but not rigidly specified or pre-determined ways." Could this mean that cells are making 'choices' about how to react, adjust & develop to input?

James Shapiro
Yaakov, you get the message. Evolution, yes, Randomness and gradualism, only in the fine-tuning after the heavy lifting has been done.

63 posted on 06/04/2004 11:50:14 AM PDT by AndrewC (I am a Bertrand Russell agnostic, even an atheist.</sarcasm>)
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To: AndrewC
Splendid! I particularly like how you inserted the question about teleology in between the first question and its answer, to make it appear as if Shapiro were endorsing the imputation of teleology. But Shapiro is wrong in asserting that because toolkit-based changes can be very complicated with respect to genes, that they are not gradualistic with respect to the genome as a whole.

Furthermore, not all mutations occur through this mechanism: there are still base pair substitutions, transposons, and the like. So there is plenty of room in the model for both small changed over long periods and dramatic changes over short periods.

Uh, oh! Sounds like the most feared hobgoblin of the creationists: Punk-Eek! Are you sure you aren't selling your soul to the Devil by going down this road?

64 posted on 06/04/2004 12:08:55 PM PDT by Physicist
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To: Dimensio
Didn't PatrickHenry explain this in a previous crevo discussion?

I've probably explained everything, at one time or another. But I can't remember any of my explanations. That's a good thing, because I'm wonderously free from the necessity of tying it all together.

65 posted on 06/04/2004 12:09:11 PM PDT by PatrickHenry (A compassionate evolutionist!)
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To: AntiGuv

My supernatural fantasies are unprintable...


66 posted on 06/04/2004 12:21:47 PM PDT by Junior (Love isn't always on time. Sometimes you have to pay for it up front.)
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To: Physicist
Splendid! I particularly like how you inserted the question about teleology in between the first question and its answer, to make it appear as if Shapiro were endorsing the imputation of teleology.

Splendid! Because if you had actually gone to the thread and checked, that is exactly the sequence of the questions. Previously, I had omitted that question for clarity in my citation. This time I left it in so as to not be accused of having an agenda and hiding something. I am accused of something anyway. Shows how you think.

Furthermore, not all mutations occur through this mechanism: there are still base pair substitutions, transposons, and the like. So there is plenty of room in the model for both small changed over long periods and dramatic changes over short periods.

If you would actually read the material you might find that Shapiro covers these things. He is a biochemist, after all.

67 posted on 06/04/2004 12:28:50 PM PDT by AndrewC (I am a Bertrand Russell agnostic, even an atheist.</sarcasm>)
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To: AndrewC
If you would actually read the material you might find that Shapiro covers these things. He is a biochemist, after all.

Oh, I'm sure that Shapiro knows these things; it's you I wasn't sure about.

If you accept all of this, then I'm afraid I don't see a whole lot of difference between your beliefs and standard evolutionary science.

68 posted on 06/04/2004 12:38:47 PM PDT by Physicist
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To: Physicist
Physicist said: "Remember that he was as ignorant of genetics as Jesus was; his theory couldn't have been predicated upon the details of how mutations occur. "

I attempted to find the meaning of "RMNS" using Yahoo but I was unsuccessful.

As ignorant as I am of the mathematically precise definitions of "intelligent design" or "irreducible complexity" I can still appreciate the tone of the discussion on this thread.

I find myself picturing two people from five-hundred years ago discussing a geo-centric model of the universe versus a helio-centric model.

Obviously, "intelligent design" would require that the Earth be the center of the universe and anything else was heresy.

The "elegance" of the circular paths of various heavenly bodies was maintained, in part, by being unable to discern that the paths of these objects were, in fact, elliptical.

In light of later physical understanding, the helio-centric model became the only reasonable description for the part played by the Earth. Nevermind the fact that additional understanding now places our sun in a very unimportant backwater of a much larger galaxy.

"Intelligent design" as it applies to the universe only seems to require that the "intelligence" choose to evidence itself using a relatively unchanging set of physical laws which allow for a high degree of determinism, at least over short periods of time and small distances, subject to the "uncertainty principle".

It would surprise me greatly if studies of genetics were, unlike any science before it, to suddenly reach a point beyond which further understanding is impossible. Nor do I think it likely that it will reach a point where the conclusion may be irrefuteably drawn that genetic mechanisms are due to "intelligent design".

69 posted on 06/04/2004 12:47:01 PM PDT by William Tell (Californians! See "www.rkba.members.sonic.net" to support California RKBA.)
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To: Physicist
If you accept all of this, then I'm afraid I don't see a whole lot of difference between your beliefs and standard evolutionary science.

If you don't see much difference then you should accept this.

It seems to me that what you are saying throws out Darwinian(or NeoDarwinian) theory of evolution as the "major" means of evolution of life on Earth and now this 21st century evolution sees a much more elegant and orgerly mechanism to induce a guided development of life when needed. [sic]...

Yaakov, you get the message. ...

70 posted on 06/04/2004 12:47:45 PM PDT by AndrewC (I am a Bertrand Russell agnostic, even an atheist.</sarcasm>)
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To: AndrewC
"What's most mysterious is that we don't know any molecular mechanism that would demand conservation like this," Haussler says.

Gosh, if science can't explain a newly discovered phenomena within the first ten minutes, the whole materialistic enterprise falls down. ID proponents never have this problem. Little green men did it.

71 posted on 06/04/2004 12:51:19 PM PDT by js1138 (In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. J Forbes Kerry)
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To: js1138
Gosh, if science can't explain a newly discovered phenomena within the first ten minutes, the whole materialistic enterprise falls down.

This is not a newly discovered phenomenon. Ultra conserved regions are known. What is different is that RMNS cannot explain this particular example.

72 posted on 06/04/2004 12:57:29 PM PDT by AndrewC (I am a Bertrand Russell agnostic, even an atheist.</sarcasm>)
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To: AndrewC

I never trusted ogers myself. Ogres either.


73 posted on 06/04/2004 1:09:37 PM PDT by js1138 (In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. J Forbes Kerry)
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To: AndrewC
What is different is that RMNS cannot explain this particular example.

OK, let me ask a simple question. Suppose a purely biochemical mechanism is found. What is your next move?

74 posted on 06/04/2004 1:11:42 PM PDT by js1138 (In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. J Forbes Kerry)
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To: Michael_Michaelangelo

God made critters with DNA expansion boards for future upgrades.(evolution)......Shock!...Gasp!


75 posted on 06/04/2004 1:14:54 PM PDT by Rebelbase
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To: Rebelbase
(evolution)......Shock!...Gasp!

Channeling the Freeper ghost of f.christian? :)

76 posted on 06/04/2004 1:16:25 PM PDT by Constitution Day (Rush may be "show prep for the media", but FR is show prep for RUSH!)
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To: Constitution Day

did he or she get the boot? I remember the name.


77 posted on 06/04/2004 1:17:42 PM PDT by Rebelbase
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To: js1138
Suppose a purely biochemical mechanism is found. What is your next move?

Watch the dancing done by Darwinians in explaining the role of natural selection in the preservation of gene sequences and explaining the changes allowed in those preserved areas(the "same" areas as those in mice and men)in fish.

78 posted on 06/04/2004 1:17:52 PM PDT by AndrewC (I am a Bertrand Russell agnostic, even an atheist.</sarcasm>)
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To: Rebelbase
Booted by JR himself.
Now posting as byeltsin on LP, I think.

You must admit, the posting style is...unique.

79 posted on 06/04/2004 1:22:15 PM PDT by Constitution Day (Rush may be "show prep for the media", but FR is show prep for RUSH!)
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To: AndrewC

Suppose it doesn't require selection? If selection were the cause of stability, we would see wobble around a central island of stability.

More likely, conservation is a central tendency, and conserved fragments will be found in a normal distribution of sizes.

That is just my hunch, not the theory of a biologist.


80 posted on 06/04/2004 1:25:49 PM PDT by js1138 (In a minute there is time, for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. J Forbes Kerry)
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