dr.syntax

How is it that an Amoeba has 200 times the DNA of a human ? An onion 12 times as much. A rasberry has 12% of the DNA of a human wich seems logical. It`s a simpler organism and would require less DNA to produce the fewer attributes to be expressed. As far as I know ,no one has come up with a cohesive answer yet. If someone did I did not read of it. The Harvard Gazette is where I got the figures used here. There is speculation out there but no decisive answers. I appears to me amoebas have simply been piling up random DNA that occurred through mutation as long as it did not prove fatal or detrimental to it`s survival over the 2 billion year history of thier existance. No delete function or unesessary files clean up function and have continued to carry about a massive ammount of DNA that serves no purpose. I`ve read articles stating about 95% of human DNA is junk. Anyone else have any thoughts , information on this they`d like to share ? ...Dr.Syntax...... Post Script: eukaryotes generally do have manitudes more DNA than prokaryotes. Total DNA content is known as C-value. Humans do have more genes than amoebas. This massive discrepency between human DNA to amoeba DNA content is NOT confined to amoebas and is known as the C-value paradox. The energy required to store and replicate this DNA in Amoebas is massive and slows the replication process significantly. I`m getting all this information from: " Power Sex suicide: mitochondria and the meaning of life". Written by Nick Lane. The link I found is ridiculously long and those long type never work for me any way. ...ds

Does it have to be a natural plant ? Maybe there is something in your mother`s cleaning cabinet you can think of. Another source might be where she stores baking supplies and pickleling supplies. ...DS

Start being fair,remove his post or allow my response.

REPLY:Why is Inow allowed to seek me out for ridicule ? Why is his posting not deleted ? It is like I said the rules are applied against me. Anyone can post any nasty smarmy remark about me they care to and that is all just fine,the rules no longer matter with you people. WHATEVER, Dr.Syntax

REPLY:.......Dear Mythranil , Is there any likelyhood of discovering new areas where the surface of the Earth survived,did not melt during this: Late Heavy Bombardment. Also would there be any reason to suppose some such areas may exist under the oceans. Is there any reason to assume they do not exist under the oceans. Just curious as it would seem if they could locate some large areas that survived this event they may find some more definitive answers as to whether life pedates this event or not. ...Dr.Syntax

REPLY: The largest cost was in making the movie. I think it is a potential hit. 39% of believers in evolution are really going to want to see it. There is so very little event bothering to watch let alone pay to see coming out of Hollywood and such. One ridiculous action hero movie after another mostly. Here is a movie older adults and the younger who weren`t die hard religious types would be interested in. By the way, how is it doing out there where it has been released ? Was it not supposed to have been released by now ? ...Dr.Syntax

REPLY: Dr.Janov would agree with everything you said about psycology as it is commonly practiced in America and throughout the world. Janov and others have developed a therapy that addresses the true issues of why we develope mental disorders such as PTSD and how to actually cure them. For many different reasons most of us become neurotics to one degree or another by the time we are 7 or so. Some much earlier. The cause is the same: repressed feelings and the cure is the same gaining access to those repressed feelings in a curative way and making those necessary connections throughout the brain and our bodies to where we have buried those unresolved feelings. It is called Primal Therapy, Here`s a link if this interests you : http:http://www.primaltherapy.com . The World is in dire need of some good therapists. Please check into this. ...Dr.Syntax

A long list of such animals : dogs,baboons,hippos,elephants,beavers,praire dogs, all of the primates to at least some degree, many birds warn each other when danger is near,porposes,whales,seals,walruses, all of the hearding animals. When you stop and think about it there appears to be a very many animals that co-operate with each other in different ways to avoid and evade enemies and to prey on others as a group. ...Dr.Syntax

REPLY: worried about the rules of engagement when posting to me. They call me anything they wish to and if I respond in kind I get told about these rules of engagement. I treat people the way they treat me. ...Dr.Syntax

well maybe when quoting someone else you should indicate it in some way shape or form instead of leaving it to seem as though it is YOUR TITLE. It`s the poster`s responsibility to see that it is presented clearly,not the readers. I still find her argument against sexual reproduction down right wierd. I guess somehow or another becauase some intellectual dreams up some inexplicable reason why sexual reproduction harms evolution in some way. We should ignore the fact that sexual reproduction has been chosen by natural selection since multicellular life forms emerged as the way to get things done.She states :" In addition,the often assumed benifits of sex to fitness,are as I have already mentioned in a number of posts,LARGELY UNPROVEN."[emphasis mine] Largely unproven !! What about that 1.2 billion year or more experiment called life on Earth that natural selection has put to the test over and over again. Sometimes adding into the test things like THE BIG FREEZE,THAT VOLCANIC ACTION THINGY and a few other notables. Sexual reproduction has been tested plenty and seems to be doing it better than anything other that may have been tried. I know about asexual reproduction and that it still works fine for bacteria and such. Perhaps for a few scientists out there also. They may be cloning themselves. I am sure many of them would see fit to do that. Whatever, ...Dr.Syntax

REPLY: Post # 12 WRITTEN BY YOU IN THIS THREAD IS TITLED: " May I suggest as the measure,the total amount of genetic information". ANYONE WISHING TO CHEK INTO THAT SCROLL BACK AND READ IT FOR YOURSELF. ...Dr.Syntax

REPLY: I had been cutting you some slack in hopes we had reached some sort of uneasy peace accord. Is it not you who has been often promoting the idea that to one degree or another that it is the amount genetic information any particular species carries about with it is somehow important in determining how complex an organism is ? Sysiphus put the lie to that notion. An onion has 12 times the DNA of a human AN AMOEBA HAS 200 TIMES as much DNA as a human being. And yet you keep promoting the notion that the amount of DNA an organism has is an important part of defining how complex it is. You also suggested that it was possible sexual reproduction was actually not a positive adapted trait. You quoted some obscure source of some bizarre theory that sexual reproduction somehow or another in fact retarded evolution. And you accuse me of tossing about silly notions I dream up. Get back ! ......Post Script: See post number 12, your post begins with the title:"May I suggest as the measure, the total amount of genetic information". I remind you an Amoeba has 200 times as much DNA information as you do, an onion 12 times as much. Are you less complex than an amoeba, an onion ? ...Dr.Synstax

It`s there in the article if you care to read about it. Its not something I came up with. I you think the whole idea is a bunch of non-sense I do not care one little bit. ...Dr.Syntax Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Appollo missions 15,16, and 17. Scroll down to " Evidence for a Cataclysm".

Dear SKye, please explain to me how we are metablolicaly simple. We seem to me as metabolically complex as all the other animals. And being mammals we have to maintain a specific temperature wich makes metabolism a good bit more complex than for fish or reptiles.This is in reply to post # 6. ...Dr.Syntax Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged RESPONSE: Are we in disagreement about anything ? Information content in and of itself doesn`t work. Amoebas have 200 times as much DNA as humans do. Onions have 4 timees as much. It seems quite clear many organisms carry around a lot of useless information called DNA. I guess Amoebas never developed a proper delete button or clean up temporary internet files and simply continue to pile up useless information as they evolve on through time. Fully 95% of the human genome is useless junk.I`ve been blogging around and the numbers don`t always totally agree but they aren`t all that different. I hope you noted I am working on your suggestion of " adaptation " into this concept of complexity. I think for most people it is easy to see how a mouse is more complex than a potato. Or that a dog is more complex than a mole or a mouse. The dog`s brain is more complex than a mouse`s. A dogs brain is more complex than a lizards. A mouse`s brain is likely to be more complex than a lizard`s and there are probablly some lizards that manage to catch and eat mice. Things like that. ...Dr.Syntax Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Reply: It`s just about anything I say. I posted something about some concept a number of scientists from different fields are working on. It`s called THE LATE HEAVY BOMBARDMENT. I read about it at the Absolute Astronomy website. I told about a concept a number of these scientists were looking into. He claimed they didn`t say some of the things I said they did. I told him where they did say these things. Now he says I am supposed to come up with some proof. I pointed out how I HAVEN`T SUGGESTED ANYTHING,these other people have. He never never acknowledges any mistakes he makes. He rejects any research findings of other qualified scientists out of hand. Who does he think he is ? If you want to suck up with him because he is a moderator go ahead. I don`t. ...Dr.Syntax

REPLY: I retract that part of my definition of complexity as the advent of the neocortex as an organ. It is the increasing complexity of the neocortex that applies to my attempts to come up with a workable definition. It was a stupid thing to say and I knew it when I said it. I was tired and getting lazy. I made a mistake. ...Dr.Syntax

REPLY: Hello Mr.Skeptic. My whole premise is that the less complex has been evolving to the more complex at an accelerating rate. I am looking at some of your suggetions like adaptability and see how I may wish to reword my original premise. For instance: adaptability in general changes organisms from the simpler to the more complex over time. Thanks Mr. Skeptic ...Dr.Syntax Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged REPLY: No plants so flowers don`t count. Do you think a daisy is more complex than a dog ?Pterosaurs appeared 228 million years ago so wings and flight is long after mammals. I may or may not check into the rest of them as I am getting tired spending so much time running down answers for you that are simply rejected for any reason you wish to imagine. Tired of all this. If you dislike me and my posts so much why not avoid them. I do yours except when they are responses to mine. ...Dr.Syntax

as some intestings findings some scientists are looking into. No one has made any definative claims about this. Only that there is growing evidence for the bombardment itself and that life may have existed prior to this Late Heavy Bombardment. I am not claiming anything so I have nothing to prove to you. ...Dr.Syntax

REPLY: and I never said humans were at the top of this scale. Quite the contrary: I said " some porposes,whales, and elephants have comparatively equal or more developed neo-cortexes. There is nothing arbitrary about my choice of the complexity of the neo-cortex as the standard I chose to define what is the most complex. It is the latest of all the organs to have evolved in any large animal group and I consider it a very good choice. ...Dr.Syntax Merged post follows: Consecutive posts merged Sisyphus brought this up and I looked into and he is right. An onion has 12 times as much and a rasberry has 8% as much. It all seems very strange and unexpected ,by me any way. A short fun article about all this is at : http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2000/02.10/onion.html . I would think that these facts would rule out any system of an rating an organism`s complexity based on the amount of genetic information it carried about a bit preposterous and unworkable. Some of the simpler organisms do have less DNA than we do. The fruitfly is another example that appears to be particularily effecient at deleting useless DNA compared to most orgaisms. I don`t know what to make of all that. It is not the amount of DNA any particular organisms carries about, but the amount of useful survival promoting DNA that becomes expressed as usefull traits that matters. Evidently some of the simplest organisms carry vast amounts of useless DNA about. I guess they did not develope an effecient delete function for junk DNA. And it is not always the simpler that have more DNA. Those rasberrys have 8% of the DNA of humans the onions 12 times as much as a human being. Oh well, ...Dr.Syntax

REPLY:To find this information go to: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Late_Heavy_Bombardment and scroll down near to the end of scrolling down there is that bit by Thursten Giesler about about traces of carbon 12 to carbon 13 ratios being unusually high normally indicating a sign of procssesing life. This study of " Jack Hills Rocks" consisting of some specimens he found there dating to 4.25 billion years ago. The rocks containing the life indicators. Also the time line at : http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Timeline_of_Evolution places the developement of the earliest lifeforms between 4.5 billion and 2.5 billion years ago. You have to scroll down to THE DETAILED TIMELINE for this information. ...DS

Did a restore floppy disc come with your computer ? If so the instructions are there on how to reinstall your OS. You will also need the OS installation DVD. Good Luck, ...DS ...Listen to Insane Alien he obviously knows more about this I do. ...DS

Well,one well known example of an atom`s nucleous losing energy is during radioactive decay. Of course it also emits an alpha particle [ 2 protons and 2 neutrons fused together] and 1 electron from one of the remaining neutrons turning that former neutron into a proton along with the emission of 1 photon. The overall reaction moves the element 1 position to the left on the periodic table. Did I get all that right ? Just working from my memory. At times not totally reliable. ...Dr.Syntax

Ever heard of the: Late Heavy Bombarment ? Part of what I read there suggests that the earliest life forms may have existed as much as 4.5 billion years ago. Some scientists believe the resultinng boiling off of the oceans would have destroyed all of these earliest life forms. Many if not most believe that some of these earliest life forms must have managed to survive somehow to explain the relatively short interval in time when up until this still controversial event occurred [from 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago] and the widely accepted 3.8 billion year history of when life began. The source of this information is Absolute Astronomy and they give a pretty good argument that this event did occur and state that there is growing evidence and it is becoming more widely accepted. It was all new to me. If you wish to read about it go to : http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Late_Heavy_Bombardment . You can link up throughout the site for different information about all this that may interest you. It`s all new to me. ...Dr.Syntax

I appreciate your informative answer to my question very much. The best definition I can come up with as to what it is about an organism I consider defining as a stardard to measure relative complexities by would be the: anatomical complexity of the nervous system and especially the brain. Such considerations as the size and complexity of the neocortex in particular. Most if not all of the lower structures are shared by at the very least all mammals. Nevertheless many of event these lower structures grow in size and complexity in the more highly evolved mammals. I do not assume we human beings are at the top of this list. Some porposes,whales, and elephants have comparatively equal or more complex and developed neocortexes. ...Dr.Syntax

How about molecular biology. Or do you already have a degree in that ? Medicinal Chemistry sounds to me like pharmacology. Maybe what you are looking for would be in a catagory such as pharmacological research and developement. You might try a web search and see what pops up. ...DS ...I just did a websearch as I suggested. Many Universities offer doctorate courses in Pharmacology some more specically research and Developement. I would include the geographic location you wish to study in, Country City and such. The courses are out there. Good Luck, ...Dr.Syntax

of evolving more complex organisms at an accelerating rate. Some variation of many of the earlier life forms co-exist with us today. Often forming symbiotic relashionships. I do not believe there is some God force at work here. But, being an agnostic I cannot say with certainty there is not. ...Dr.Syntax