PhDP

It can be seen as a force, and it is by many people.

I don't have much time, I have tons of emails to write, but a couple of things,,, #1 - Selection is most effective in large populations, otherwise genetic drift is a major and dangerous force. We're fairly big animals, our cousins; gorilla, chimps, maintain very small population compared to us, so drift will likely push slightly and even mildly deleterious mutations to fixation (=very bad thing, it's one of the worst thing about being large). So, yes, our technology allows us to minimize the effect of some slightly deleterious mutation, but it also allows us to maintain population so large that drift will never push deleterious mutations to fixation. #2 - By removing some constraints, technology might in fact favor really advantageous mutations. Let's just look at a concrete example; the human brain. Our brain requires a lot of energy, and we have to take this energy somewhere. One very credible theory is that we had to reduce the size of our digestive system to 'pay' for our large brains. Of course now we have plenty of energy, so we could evolve larger brains without having to lose a leg. #3 - Sexual selection is still effective, and because of #1 and #2, it's likely very effective considering our size. #4 - Diversity will be higher (actually, this is very important for adaptation). #5 - And lastly, who cares if our vision gets a little worst ? I could name tons of mild defects that have become irrelevant because of technology, but none of them are really important compared to the advantages. We live in a world with a lot less violence than our ancestors, it'll likely favor intellectual skills even more than before (BTW, I think evolution will likely lead to further feminization of men).

I do, and I don't like either of them (which is not surprising, I cast blank votes at both the provincial and federal elections).

You can define 'design' in so many ways, it's obviously impossible to completely eliminate this hypothesis. But it IS completely useless to add design to the equation of life, it IS arrogant and anthropocentric, and most importantly, every time we could've detected design, we found just the opposite. Just look at how our genome is organized. If some sort of god designed us, he's an idiot. It's completely irrational. It's a little like this; I roll a gazillion six-sided dice, and I decide that I will only have children if I roll a gazillion 1s and nothing else (probability of doing so; 6^(-gazillion) = very, very low). Now, if I do roll only 1s, my child could say 'oh my god, it must've been fate, because it's so improbable'. But the point is; if I roll something else, s/he won't be there to ask the question. In other word, if my child look at the improbable and interpret it as a sign of fate, s/he will always get to the conclusion that his/her existence is the result of fate. So, how can you use the value of the fundamental constant as an evidence of design, you wouldn't be there if its value would've been different, so, by definition, if you exist, the universe must've made your existence possible.

I want to be part of the United-States of Canada ! ...but seriously, Canada and the U.S should merged into a single country, not even a EU-styled union. Most, if not all, the provinces of Canada share most with some states in the U.S. than with the other provinces, it's quite obvious with Ontario (Great Lakes states), British Columbia (with the state of Washington) and Quebec with New-England & New-York. And I'm not just talking about economy, it's also a matter of culture. Of course it's not going to happen,,,

Hello CarolAlynn, I'm trained both in mathematics and in biology, if you have any mathematical evidence against evolution, I'd like to see it. The thing is; evolution is based on theoretical population genetics (the work of Wright, Fisher, Haldane, and more recently; Ohta, Lande, Kimura, Gillespie, ...), so if ID had the mathematical evidences, it would be a real problem for evolutionists like me. I could give provide you strong evidences based on genetics and mathematics. And in fact, humans have appeared on earth much later than previously thought (about ~5 m.y.a.). But if you're really interested, you should read a general book about this, not science popularization, not a book trying to sell you evolution or ID, a normal textbook used at the college/university level, and I'm sure many people here (me included) would love to answer your questions. However, you have to understand that evolution is more than just "random mutations + selection", it's a complex process. If you really want to understand it, you'll need to do a little reading. That's a problem with IDists (those who follow ID), they call us "Darwinists". I'm an evolutionary scientist, yet I don't consider myself a "Darwinist", in fact I think his contribution was not that great (compared to Fisher, Wright, ...). I have no problem with the notion that god (or something else) created the universe so evolution would be possible, I don't believe it, but it's not impossible. However, ID contradicts the theory of evolution.

Just a very general question; what do you think of Python ? What's the main strengths/weaknesses of the language (say, versus JAVA) ?

Kathleen Sebelius would be a great choice for VP, IMO. Yep, but they're men.

I don't know if somebody pointed that out, but there was George Bushesque in Hillary's speech. The refusal to admit mistakes, the refusal to admit defeat, the stubbornness, it was as if she was unable to face reality. It's sad, I was, initially, one of her supporter. I think she would've made a great president, nobody disputes her intelligence, and she's internationally respected. But after what happened in the last few weeks... I admit it, I made a mistake, I should've supported Obama right from the start. We often talk about experience, but the guy ran such a great campaign. I wish he could choose his own VP, but I'm afraid Hillary is powerful enough to take the spot by force. Again (surprisingly), I'd go with Sir Pangloss on this; Bill Richardson seems like a good choice. As a side note, I watched the speech by McCain Tuesday. wow. He sucks. He's one of my favorite republican, but what a poor orator. It won't be easy against an eloquent public speaker.

We're complex assemblages of simple molecules. When we die, we just get back at being a bunch of simple molecules. IMO, the notion that we could somehow do better than other lifeforms and 'survive' our death makes absolutely no sense, it goes beyond wishful thinking, it's downright arrogance. And I think most people haven't really given much thought about how to reconcile the concept of life after death with our current knowledge of how the universe work. It seems to me that most believers just, well, believe. But unlike the question of the existence of god(s), where we really can't apply science directly to provide positive or negative evidences, we can produce evidences that life after death is impossible, or, even worst, that the whole concept isn't internally coherent. For the sake of argumentation, let's be very generous and assume that there's some other substance, some other laws that would allow our essence (i.e.: soul) to survive after death. I must point out that we have absolutely no good reason to think so, but let's assume that it would be possible. Even after conceding this major point, the whole concept of living outside our body creates so many problems... #1. Essence. We live under the illusion that we have an essence, a consistent 'self'. In reality, we're dynamical systems, I'm not the same person right now that I was 5 days ago, and I won't be the same in 5 days. If I die, WHAT exactly will survive ? Let's put this another way, if I get hit on the head very hard, and my personality change as a result. My 'self' will change, the chemical balance in my brain would be different, the way I interpret my memories, et cetera. If my soul can't 'save' this change, then it's not really related to me, but if it does, why would it leaves other similar changes like those produced by Alzheimer's ? Why would our soul follow our evolution as biological organisms only in some circumstances ? Because we know so much now about how the brain work from a mechanical perspective it's hard to imagine how we could survive the destruction of the structure. And it's why I say we're arrogant, nobody would be crazy enough to claim that a computer could continue to work when it's destroyed, because we all know the computer is a complex structure, once the structure is gone the properties emerging from the structure have to disappear. And even if for some reason the information contained in the structured could be save, the question remains, which information, and when ? Is our soul affected by illness, is it affected by genetics, if not, then this soul has little to do with who we are. #2. Love, joy, sadness, desire, fear, all the things that define us are in fact related to our status as mortal animals. They are related to our need to survive, both within our body and through reproduction. These emotions and states would have no meaning if we were immortal souls, in fact, why would an immortal soul love his child ? Why would an immortal soul have a feeling which existence was made possible only by death ? We're animals, most of the things we do are typical of animals, we eat, sleep, love, hate, those things only make sense because we die. What would be left in that immortal soul ? Would this immortal soul continue to be defined by our concerns as animals ? That would make little sense. Yet, if it's not the case, what would be left ? #3. When have we acquired our souls ? Do cells have souls ? If they do, are we composed of gazillions of souls ? And even if we accept the notion that cells have souls, at which point a multicellular organism would get his how soul ? Where do we need to register ? Or some promethean fairy have decided that some years ago, we humans could survive death ? I'll admit this argument is the weakest, in a sense, because many people would invoke the existence of mystical entities. But I think it does show that we need to get pretty far away from rationality and science, and we need to accept as true many things to believe in life after death. In short, I don't believe in life after death, and I don't even think it's possible to formulate this concept in a coherent matter. However, most people want so bad to believe in some fairly tales that I'm quite sure they'll invoke some sort of "it's beyond our understanding" argument. Even so, I think they would have to deal with my first two arguments.

Eric Charnov worked on this question, I'll post a reference a little later. Actually, sexual selection often runs against ecological selection. Why do you think we have a 50:50 sex ratio ?

To be honest, I'm really not concerned about creationists, I think they've legitimized atheism in North America by attacking science from molecular biology to astrophysics. In short, they're working on my side I'm mostly concerned about how evolution is taugh in school.

...an article in PLoS Biology, you can find it here. On another topic, I proposed to teach physics only with calculus, I think we should also only teach genetics & evolution when students know a little about probability and statistics. They would get a much better understanding of the subject and would be less likely to be misled by creationists.

Why would it do that ?

No.

1 - All insects are winged (unless they secondarily lost their wings). 2 - Insects are likely related to crustaceans, Gonzalo Giribet have recently postulated the existence of the "pancrustacea" group (i.e.: insects are derived from crustaceans). Which is odd as most people thought insects were primarily related to myriapods (millipedes, centipedes...), but the pancrustacea hypothesis looks solid. 3 - I would suggest Heming's "Insect Development and Evolution", but it's quite technical. Another suggestion; "The Thermal Warriors: Strategies of Insect Survival", the author talk about flight (even if it's not the main theme of the book) and it's one of the few good and rigorous science popularization book, IMO.

Unless you count mutations as illness (and you shouldn't), then viruses can't get sick. On the other hand, bacteria can be infected by viruses.

Lucaspa, Sorry, but your data and your maths are wrong. This particular sentence; ...means nothing. Even the most ardent believer in natural selection knows that it has a blind spot when |s| is too small. If the allele is neutral (very close to 0, either positive or negative), or even deleterious, given infinite time and one-way mutations, mathematical population genetics guarantees the fixation of the allele (eventually...). But the probability of fixation of a single neutral mutant is 1/2N. What you don't seem to understand is that a positive value of s is no different than a negative value if |s| is too small (compared to N), it's evolution 101.

Thank you for the suggestions... but those books are very old, I can't believe nothing better was published since then (I think my oldest textbook was published in 1999).

It's permanent. If you're seriously considering this, you should at least read the article on wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LASIK

Little, IMO, it's a small group (~5k species) limited to a particular ecosystem. It's true that they eat some pests (mosquitoes), but many amphibians are considered pests.

The maths used in Statistical physics are remarkably similar to the maths used in my field of study, and I would really like to get a good introduction to statistical physics, any good textbook ?

Pretty much everything is impossible, if you throw a ball, it will follow a specific trajectory. There's nearly an infinite number of possible trajectories, but it will always follow the same path given the exact same conditions (...and ignoring quantum physics). Human mothers give birth to human, not insects or solar systems, T. Rex won't fly, the moon can't talk, et cetera...

Probability & statistics would be very useful (even if I dislike the latter). Perhaps some basic algebra... sometime...

Apparently, ~75 000 oregonians wanted to see Obama. Nearly every single time I listen to CNN, they're talking about how Obama is having difficulties with 'whites'. I'm not an expert in U.S demographics, but I would tend to rank Oregon among the states with the smallest African-American population. ...of course Obama is popular among African-Americans, but I think the medias tend to put too much emphasis on this issue.