"Genetic Death": The Evolution Meat Grinder

Bern, apparently, you're experiencing a problem in one of 2 areas; either you are unwilling to understand or incapable of understanding what has been presented to you in this discussion. Perhaps (though in this instance, as I tend to learn through experience, I remain skeptical enough to hold no unrealistically high expectation), you might find THIS to be of interest and assistance.

Additionally, on the off chance your interest and abilities might permit you to profit thereby, please allow me to submit for your edification the following peer-reviewed, acredited-professional-journal-published article detailing the evolution of the immune system: Cell biology, molecular embryology, Lamarckian and Darwinian selection as evolvability, and another detailing a rigorously developed mathematical model for the chemical evolution of the cell; Suggested model for prebiotic evolution: The use of chaos (Note: 5 page .pdf download). Finally, should you be up to the task of tackling an overview of the current state of the scientific basis for and understanding of evolution, I recommend a readily accessible book, available through any respectable bookseller or public library:

Biochemical Adaptation : Mechanism and Process in Physiological Evolution: Hochachka, P.W and Somero, G.N.
Oxford University Press (USA), New York, NY (2002)
ISBN: 0195117034

Admittedly, the recommended literature is not aimed at the simple-minded; while lamentable, it is perfectly understandable that those confirmed in ID-iocy might find insuperable the challenge of objectively considering that which decisively and unambiguously exposes the absurdities of their ludicrous, intellectually bankrupt propositions.

I've just seen a programme called TIME presented by Michio Fuku or something.

It's certainly a meat grinder.But he ended on a note of hope. And a note is as good as you can get. A little tune. Like whistling in the dark.

That clock in a cave in Nevada was a real work of art but like Flaubert might have said what is it compared to a dragonfly's wing.

My member profile is spot on.And it is unchanged from day one. It's you big fat egos who are oddballs. But I suppose it takes a big fat ego to go spouting all over the www with a load of here today/gone tomorrow self flattery and special pleadings. Wailings sometimes.

And now you will all say, possibly in unison, how come you're on spendi then?

How I got on here is a bit of a tale. A chapter of accidents. It started with one of those howsyerfathers in the swing doors in the Metrepole, assuming we are being superficial under the rules of poetic licence. And here I am. And I have a valid reason for being on that has nothing to do with me. It's a duty as I see it.

That's why I'm incomprehensible. But I did used to have a big fat ego once. That's how I know what it's like. I sympathise. I really,really do.

Scientists Debate the Normalcy of Ancient 'Hobbits'
Scientists Debate the Normalcy of Ancient 'Hobbits'
By Guy Gugliotta
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 19, 2006; A12

More than 1 1/2 years after discovering a race of ancient, "Hobbit"-like little people on a remote tropical island, scientists still do not know what to make of them. Are they a new species of human ancestor? Or were they modern humans suffering from a debilitating genetic deformity?

In dueling papers being published today by the journal Science, researchers offer fresh insights on both sides, seeking to explain how a 30-year-old female with a grapefruit-sized brain could have appeared 18,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Flores.

A research team led by primatologist Robert D. Martin, provost of Chicago's Field Museum, argues that no human ancestor could reach a weight of 64 pounds with a brain size of only 23.2 cubic inches and be able to make sophisticated tools such as those found with the Hobbit remains.

The Martin team said the Hobbit must have been a modern human with microcephaly -- a condition, usually genetic, in which the brain fails to grow to normal size. "This brain is too small for any explanation besides pathology," Martin said in a telephone interview.

In a rebuttal to the Martin group, a second team led by Florida State University paleoanthropologist Dean Falk defended its earlier research, contending that the Flores skull was nothing like that of a microcephalic and that the remains most likely represent a previously unknown species.

"We are just finishing a big study on microcephalics that confirms our earlier observations," Falk said in a telephone interview. Whereas microcephalic brains shrink with age, causing the inside of the skull to smooth out, the Flores skull is highly convoluted, reflecting the imprint of a fully expanded, fully functioning brain, she said.

Several scientists said, however, that neither of the new papers would be the last word on the controversy. "This argument is going to run and run," said Ian Tattersall, an anthropology curator at the American Museum of Natural History and a bystander in the dispute. "This is an extraordinarily weird and unexpected thing, and, even now, nobody knows what to do with it."

A multinational team led by archaeologist Michael J. Morwood of Australia's University of New England unearthed the remains in a limestone cave on Flores, an island east of the Java Sea.

The team described the find as a new species of dwarf human ancestor that overlapped with modern humans and survived long after Neanderthals died out about 30,000 years ago. In late 2004, the team dubbed the fossil Homo florensiensis , but short stature and the presence of stone tool artifacts soon earned it the nickname Hobbit, after the small but clever villagers from J.R.R. Tolkien's book of the same name.

Martin and several colleagues disputed the find from the beginning, arguing that no creature with a brain as small as the Hobbit's could make finely wrought stone tools and hunt the animals whose remains were found in the cave.

Yesterday, they criticized Falk's research last year describing the Hobbit's brain as remarkably sophisticated, even for its small size, and for saying it did not match up at all with the elongated brain of a typical microcephalic.

Martin's team found that Falk had used the skull of a 10-year-old microcephalic for comparison and said that adults with the condition had skulls that were not unlike the Hobbit's.

"The one they used was the worst possible choice," he said. "Adults look far more normal than the extreme case she took."

Falk, however, disputed the Martin team's analysis, saying that the skull used in the earlier study was a "perfectly dandy microcephalic -- typical, with the sloping forehead and a pointed top," and completely unlike the Hobbit skull.

Rick Potts, head of the Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program and an early skeptic, said even newer research, not formally reported, showed in late 2004 that the Hobbit's leg bone, foot and shoulder joint were "quite different from modern humans."

"Martin did not take into account other parts of the skeleton," Potts said. "This is something off the chart as far as being a modern human, or it's a modern human the likes of which we have never seen before. At this point, it's still probably best recognized as a new species. I would say Homo florensiensis still holds."

I thought that Gobstoppers were only found in comics for 5-year olds.

What I want to know is how a 17 year old female with a brain the size of a tomato pip could have appeared at a table in the Winter Gardens full of empty glasses and disgusting ashtrays looking as irresistable as the Queen of the Heavenly Spheres.

Thank You, Timberlandko. I will obtain the book - BIochemical Adaptation by Hochachka. I will try to understand it and then, to complete my education I will try to reference an ID scientist with my understanding of the book's evidence. It may well be that the ID'er will have no answer for me.

Then, of course, in my never ceasing drive to understand, I will attempt to get someone to explain the Big Bang for me.

Oh, I understand the concept of the Big Bang, all right. What I cannot understand is the concept that the "singualrity" has no "around" around it and that there is no place for the "singularity" to be.

I really find this harder to understand than the difficult but, after reading Adler's comments carefully, concept of God.

I hope I can finish the book and report to you soon, Mr.Timberlandko!!!

Singularities usually refer to black holes, not the Big Bang. Which one are you asking about, and what do you want to know?

ros-

I can't wait for Bern to reply. I am eager to know myself the answer to the questions he raises and if you know the answers I'm sure there are many more besides us two who wait with baited breath for you to explain it all in simple English and without recourse to wild speculations of a fanciful nature such as are often seen on the Discovery Channel,usually accompanied by religious music and Gregorian intonations, or in glossy psuedo-scientific magazines juxtaposed with adverts for self-improving books and remote controlled garage doors.

He hasn't asked any questions, other than to request an explanation of the Big Bang. There are many many web sites on that subject. Why can't he just google one of them for himself?

If he has a specific question, that would be different. I would be happy to try to answer.

Gnashes teeth!

I don't know why.

Quit gnashing and just ask what you want to ask.

ros-

What's it all about then?

What happened 14 billion years ago give or take a week or two. If everybody who thinks God did it is a lunatic,as you have stated often enough, what is the sane explanation?

Nobody knows what started it, science makes no claim, and I certainly never have. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a magic elf, or an old man with a beard, but other than that, I don't know.

What we do know is what happened after, how it evolved. That part physics explains pretty well.

Mr. Rosborne979. I was referencing the book by Bill Bryson called "A Short History of Nearly Everything" ( I know he is not a scientist, so his "explanation" may be flawed but, here it is--

"If you would prefer instead to build a more 0ld-fashioned, standard big bang Universe, you'll need additional materials, In fact, you will need to gather up everything there is-every last mote and particle of matter between here and the edge of creation--and squeeze it into a spot so infinitesimally compact that it HAS NO DEMENSIONS AT ALL. IT IS KNOWN AS A SINGULARITY. In either case, get ready for a really big bang. Naturally, you will wish to retire to a safe place to observe the spectacle. UNFORTUNATELY, THERE IS NOWHERE TO RETIRE TO BECAUSE OUTSIDE THE SINGULARITY THERE IS NO WHERE. When the Universe begins to expand, it won't be spreading out to fill a larger emptiness. THE ONLY SPACE THAT EXISTS IS THE SPACE IT CREATES AS IT GOES.

It is natural but wrong to visualize the singularity as a kind of pregnant dot hanging in a dark, boundless void. BUT THERE IS NO SPACE, NO DARKNESS, THE SINGULARITY HAS NO "AROUND"AROUND IT. There is no space for it to occupy, no place for it to be. We can't even ask how long it has been there--whether it just lately popped into being, like a good idea, or whether it has been there forever quietly AWAITING THE RIGHT MOMENT. Time doesn't exist. There is no past for it to emerge from."

end of quote


Now, if Brysons' account is correct and people wish to have me understand and believe in what he has written, I must say that the dicussion of God in Mortimer Adler's "How to Think About God" is much more logical, makes more sense and is easier to understand.

ros wrote-



We all understand that ros.

What's the deus-ex-machina?

ID is one possible explanation. A meaningless and incomprehensible happening of unimaginable ferocity about 14.7 billion years ago is another.

Have you a view on which and what conclusions you might derive from it in the event that you have?

Bern wrote-



How could there be evolution before bones? I thought sexual selection is a key principle of evolution and without a bone it is most unlikely that one might be selected in.

Not counting chiclids and molluscs of course which don't do discos.

Bryson's account is reasonably accurate, even though he is playing fast and loose with the term "singularity".

The Big Bang is the theory which best describes the evolution of space/time based on physical evidence. It is a projection, based on physics of conditions in the Universe which existed at a certain point in time relative to where we are now.

The theory says nothing about what came before the initial point. We don't even have parameters or concepts to describe things which are outside of time (at least with science).

I'm not familiar with Mortimer Alder's vision of God, so I can't say if it is more "logical" or less than the Big Bang.

I can say however, that the Big Bang is a scientific theory which works within the parameters of science. No theory which invokes God or any other supernatural entity can be considered science (by definition), so the two "viewpoints" can not be compared using the same logic.

If you prefer to believe in some form of God which exists outside of our space/time Universe, then go ahead. I, like science, simply prefer to say that I just don't know.

Actually, I kinda like that explanation. I sure solves a lot of problems.

Not everyone understands that Spendi. And it never hurts to establish a foundation for discussion.



Perhaps the ghost in the machine is the same as the thing that goes bump in the night... merely our dreams and fears making something out of nothing. A figment of humanity projected onto an incomprehensible stage.



You're asking for my opinion on something for which I have absolutely no evidence or logic upon which to base a guess?

But I'll play along...

ID is a flawed assumption. This Universe was not designed, it grew. But if anything planted the Big seed, and I'm not suggesting something did, but *if* it did, then it wouldn't be called a designer, it would be called a farmer. So how 'bout we start talking about Intelligent Farming instead of Intelligend Design. No more ID... Long live IF. What IF?