lucaspa

I have read that they do. It's just that, at those sizes, the waves are so small as to be unnoticeable. For instance, I have read the the wave function of you and I is smaller than the diameter of an atom. Much too small to be noticed or measured.

As Skeptic said, they reconstructed the virus. Also, what the poster is ignoring is that the ERV's are not just between chimps and humans, but there is a nested hierarchy of nested ERV's in all the great apes. We share more with chimps than we do with gorillas. And then we have some unique ones not in any of the other apes. Here's one place where the entire ERV hierarchy is laid out: http://www.christianforums.com/t96639 You also have to remember that the part of the virus integrated not only varies from virus to virus, but from infection to infection in the same virus. So, for all chimps or all humans to have an ERV, it means that they all descended from a common ancestor that had the ERV -- evolution.

Apples and oranges. Or a strawman. In looking at chromosomes, you can determine the similarity of chromosomes by banding patterns. People can identify merged chromosomes, translocations, fusions, truncations, and other changes to a chromosome by looking at the banding patterns. It's all well-documented in the scientific literature dealing with issues other than the chimp-human genome. And that's what we are talking about here: chromosome fusion.

And I submit that this is as inappropriate in a science forum as those promoting science as proving God exists. Science is agnostic. By its legitimate methods, science cannot comment on the issue of God's superintendence over nature. As scientists, we neither affirm nor deny it; we can't comment. (from a quote by Gould). To quote Eugenie Scott, Ph.D., head of the National Center for Science Education: "for a nonreligious professor to interject his own philosophy into the classroom in this manner is as offensive as it would be for a fundamentalist professor to pass off his philosophy as science." Eugenie Scott in the essay Creationism in The Flight from Science and Reason, New York Academy of Sciences, volume 775, 1995, pg 519. That does not follow. Most Christians are not creationists. Some Christians are creationist, just as some scientists are atheist. But being Christian does not mean you are a creationist anymore than being a scientist means you are atheist. I'm afraid it doesn't. Natural selection removes an argument for God as a valid argument: the Argument from Design. Natural selection means that God does not have to directly manufacture each species, but it certainly does not mean that God is not necessary. I'm afraid you misunderstood the science. I'm afraid Carl lied. Most of Christianity reacted the way Carl described. Carl Sagan is an example of someone who mistakenly tried to make his faith into a conclusion of science. Dawkins is another. In that regard, they warp science as badly, or worse, than any creationist. Ah, one of the myths of militant atheism: people only believe because their parents said so! You have a poor opinion of scientists, don't you? You trust them to imagine the "world outside the box" to make their discoveries, but then don't trust them to keep thinking "outside the box" when it comes to deity. At least 40% of scientists are theists by a very conservative definition. Provine tried to rationalize this contrary bit of data to the myth by saying that scientists "checked their brains at the door" when it comes to religion. I submit that militant atheists are the ones that check their brains at the door. Djamarrco's position is exactly that of Charles Darwin in Origin of Species. Darwin had God directly manufacturing life by had species originate by the secondary cause of evolution by natural selection: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved." C. Darwin, On the Origin of Species, pg 450. Now, "secondary cause" is a religious concept that has been forgotten by modern day creationists. You apparently were never taught it. Many theists look for "gaps" to insert God into. Djamarrco did so. However, both science and theology has advanced since Darwin's day. There are secondary causes -- chemistry -- to get life from non-life. And theologians realize that god-of-the-gaps theology is non-Christian: "There are profound biblical objections to such a "God-of-the-gaps," as this understanding of God's relation to the universe has come to be called. By "gap" it is meant that no member or members of the universe can be found to account for regularly occurring phenomana in nature. God is inserted in the gaps which could be occupied by members of the universe. This is theologically improper because God, as creator of the universe, is not a member of the universe. God can never properly be used in scientific accounts, which are formulated in terms of the relations between members of the universe, because that would reduce God to the status of a creature. According to a Christian conception of God as creator of a universe that is rational through and through, there are no missing relations between the members of nature. If, in our study of nature, we run into what seems to be an instance of a connection missing between members of nature, the Christian doctrine of creation implies that we should keep looking for one. ...But, according to the doctrine of creation, we are never to postulate God as the *immediate* cause of any *regular* [emphases in original] occurrence in nature. In time, a "God of the gaps" was seen to be bad science as well as bad theology. Science now is programamatically committed to a view of nature in which there are no gaps between members of the universe." Diogenes Allen, Christian Belief in a Postmodern World, pp. 45-46. Four, I don't care that you went from theist to atheist. However, you should care that you did so for invalid reasons. You want to look for the valid reasons for believing deity does not exist. Trying to cite science as a valid reasons means that it is necessary to defend science from that abuse. Science is not a way to convert people to your faith.

1. When I said "see Sayonara" I meant that he gave a good answer to your previous post. 2. Did you stop and notice that the website I gave for the definition of "abstract" was exactly the website you gave? So, yes, "there"! 3. You can't use wikipedia as a source in a serious discussion. It is not referreed and people can put into it whatever they like. There is no way to ensure that what is in Wiki is accurate. That's why I used Merriam-Webster. But in doing so you missed the context of my comments. The thread had already been taken out of science by the poster who said "I believe all animals have souls ..." What you specifically objected to was what you considered denigration of the intelligence of dogs. If that is the case, then you have destroyed the only basis for your claim that dogs dream! Sam, you need to remember what the claims were. It was your claim that dogs dream: "GEEEZE, dogs even have dreams ya know." Now you have just destroyed 1) your own claim and with it 2) a major basis for your claim of canine intelligence! Thank you for backing my position and destroying yours, but in the future you might want to keep track of what you are doing a bit better. So how do you know those are "dreams"? Yes, you "call" it, but this is a science forum. What data do you have to back your opinion? I at least was relating the correlation between REM sleep and dreams in humans --which data you deny! So on one hand you deny the considerable scientific data correlating REM sleep and dreaming but on the other hand you "call it" without any data whatsoever! Science isn't about stating your opinon as "fact", but about reaching logical conclusions from the data and recognizing when the data doesn't allow conclusions. However, that still doesn't get us anywhere nearer answering the question whether dogs are capable of abstract thought. How do any of your stories demonstrate abstract thought in the animals you mention? None of them even particularly represent "play". They could equally well test the reactions of other animals in their environment. The deer are checking whether the cows are dangerous and will chase them. Not abstract, but concrete thought. None of the stories had anything to do with dogs.

See Sayonara. You didn't post a source for your definition but it seems you got it here: wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn. This uses a non-standard definition of "abstract". "1 a: disassociated from any specific instance " Merriam-Webster As I have seen the term used in scientific papers, abstract thought involves the use of symbols and concepts that don't exist in a concrete form or are dissociated from a concrete form. "soul" is an example, which is what we were talking about in the post you quoted me from. "soul" is not any specific instance and is dissociated from anything physical. Coherent and logical thinking can, and often does, involve specific instances. They appear to in that they have REM sleep. However, without the ability to communicate, you don't know whether those dreams involve concrete sense impressions or the more symbolic, abstract dreams that humans have. I have. They are capable of quite impressive problem solving skills. That still doesn't translate to abstract thought. Now octupi, OTOH, do seem capable of the abstract concept "play". But then they have pretty complex brains.

ROFL! The problem with this is that Adam and Eve sinned by eating the fruit. So they were sinning before the fruit had a chance to fuse the chromosomes! However, on a more serious note, natural selection does explain the human tendency to sin. Think about it. Natural selection can only be selfish. So what is sin? Selfishness. Doing what we want instead of what Yahweh wants or what is good for our fellow humans. That's why Adam and Eve disobeyed Yahweh to eat the fruit: supposed benefits to them (selfishness). Humans are sinners as a result of the very process that Yahweh used to create us (assuming you believe in Yahweh). So evolution provides an answer to one of the major puzzles of theology. Ironic, isn't it? Of course, it is ironic that, historically, evolution was regarded in the late 1800s as rescuing Yahweh from Special Creation/ID.

1. Pretty much you are correct in the general drawing of a chromosome. Chromosome #2 for humans doesn't follow this pattern. Here is a good source: http://learning.swc.hccs.edu/members/david.schwartz/humanandapechromosomes "Human chromosome #2 has an inactive centromere exactly where the active chimp centromere is positioned, and at the human centromere, DNA sequencing has shown the order pre-telomere, telomere, telomere, pre-telomere; exactly what would be predicted by a head to head fusion of two chromosomes into one. " 2. This is an ad hoc hypothesis: it's purpose is to keep the main hypothesis -- special and separate manufacture of humans and chimps -- from being falsified by the hypothesis the our 23 pairs comes from fusion of 2 chromosomes in the 24 pairs in chimps. The person is conceding that our 23 comes from fusion of 2 chromosomes, but instead of the fusion resulting during evolution, the ad hoc hypothesis is that it is due to the Fall. IOW, the fusion is conceded, but the cause is different. That's a very difficult ad hoc hypothesis to refute scientifically, because how do you refute "the Fall" by science and what can happen via such a "Fall"? Now, the quote above shows that chromosome #2 has an inactive centromere where the chimp has an active one. You can try to play the "odds" game against the creationist and ask what the odds are that the human genome would correspond so closely to the chimp genome, including the fused chromosome! The creationist is going to reply "similar design", but the reply is: if chimps and humans are so very different and are very different animals (as creationism says), then where is the similarity of design? If there is such a "similarity of design", then chimps and humans aren't that different. IOW, the creationist ad hoc hypothesis puts him/her on the horns of a dilemma. If you want to step away from science and argue on the creationist's turf -- theology -- then there is a more powerful argument. Go to Genesis 3 and read carefully the punishments meted out for Adam and Eve's transgressions. They are very specific and very limited. If the creationist is taking the Bible literally, then to be consistent the creationist can't go beyond the literal Bible. There is no mention of "fused chromosomes" or any other genetic alteration in either Adam or Eve. If we can add this to the Bible, then what is to stop us from adding anything we want. Perhaps we can add that, when Jesus said "Let the little children come unto me" he then went off and molested them! What would stop us if the rules for making things up to add to the Bible are suspended? The creationist has put himself on the horns of a theological dilemma: wanting to asset the absolute authority of scripture, she is actually destroying that authority. Let us know how it turns out. BTW, there are other very solid refutations of the "similarity of design" argument if you are interested.

I'm not quite sure what you are referring to here as "a few wrong predictions". Can you enumerate them? Most of the objections I see is that many of the current theories in physics violate what some people see as "common sense". Too bad for common sense. Right now in physics are 2 major overarching theories: Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. The problem is that they are incommensurate. There is no way, currently, to quantize gravity. At least none that has has gained consensus within the physics community. Gravitons is one proposed theory to do this. In order to be accepted, the theory must have better concordance with the data. You are using Monday morning quarterbacking with heliocentrism. At the time, Copernicus' theory actually predicted the observed position of planets worse than geocentrism. That was why it was not accepted (and what got Galileo in so much trouble). It was emotionally appealing because it gave a huge universe. But emotion is not the correct way to evaluate a theory. So Copernicus' theory was debated and generally rejected until, as you note, Kepler used elliptical orbits and now, for the first time, heliocentrism made better predictions than geocentrism. No, it's not. It's just a very difficult requirement to meet. But it is precisely the requirement that must be met for a theory to be accepted in the scientific community. What we usually see, however, is that the theory makes no predictions. And that is where I, for one, want them to publish. Or at least try to publish. I think people come here because they think they can convince people who are not professional physicists and therefore gain acceptance that they cannot gain in the scientific community. I disagree with the alternative because of the second. If you look at this thread, many of the theories have had holes poked in the theory. The problem is that the person proposing the theory doesn't accept the holes! This makes it much more frustrating and a waste of time than giving good information to people who actually ask for it and appreciate it. If you are serious about proposing a new theory, then one requirement of your personality is that you be willing to accept criticism and modify your theory accordingly. I, unfortunately, see very little ability of the proposers to learn from the process. If they were willing to learn, I for one would enjoy the process in the hope that, one day, we really would get a valid new theory. THAT would be very exciting.

An assumption of science is that the universe is unified. QM did not "abandon" theories. Instead, there was no way to reconcile QM and Relativity because gravity was not quantized. So we had 2 separate theories that explained different parts of the universe very well. Both corresponded to the data in that area of the universe EXTREMELY well. Remember, theories are driven and controlled by data, not the other way around. Since then, many people have tried to find a theory of quantum gravity or a way to get around the quantization or indeterminism of QM. Both are approaches to getting a theory that would unify Relativity and QM. So far, no one has been successful. There are several choices: 1. It is possible that the basic assumption of science -- that the universe is unified -- is wrong. 2. No one has found the correct unified theory and we should keep looking. Yes. In submitting to PNAS, you also can use sponsors. The role of the sponsor is to review and critique the manuscript and make sure it is ready for publication. The sponsor does not have to initially agree with your views, only agree that the paper is scientifically sound and be willing to send it in. So, if you send it to a sponsor, you will get an initial review. The sponsor may decide that the paper is deficient, in which case he will tell you that. 1. Complete citation, please? 2. I don't see that the sequence above fits the equation B1-(A2B1) It only looks like the part in the parentheses fits that equation! Otherwise, the numbers at the front of the sequence (1/3, 2/5, etc) are completely arbibrary. 3. And by "fit the sequence", what exactly are you referring to? The width of the rings? The spacing between them? What about the rings around other comets? Do they fit this sequence? If only the rings around Haley-Bop fit the sequence, then you have coincidence, not a principle. You lost me at that leap of logic. Go back and take it step by step. The "cause" is the same one you used for the sequence above: it fit the data! Pot, meet kettle. Uh, no, it can't. You said "The sequence for particle structure is also a fractions of the remainder sequence, but the opening fractional sequence is 1, 1/2 1/3, 1/4 etc" The sequence above uses 1/3, 2/5, 4/9, etc. So how does your theory get that fraction of the remainder sequence from your fraction of the remainder sequence? There are posts by "elas" and posts by "merlin wood". Those posts talk about what appears to be 2 different theories. Are you saying that "elas" and "merlin wood" are the same person talking about the same theory?

By noting that the required intelligence requires a large and complex brain in order to contemplate abstract thought. Dogs don't have the required brain. Which means 2 things: 1. You don't know dogs have souls, because the only reason we think humans have souls is because humans can discuss the subject with other humans. As you stated "I believe that all animals have souls." That's fine. You have stated a belief. But you can't go from that belief to taking it as a factual premise without the data. And, as you admit, you can't get the data! 2. My point wasn't only about "verbalizing thought", but having the ability to form abstract thoughts to begin with. Rhe only reason we even consider that babies have souls is because, as adults, we have the ability to formulate and communicate (verbalize) abstract thought. Dogs don't have that ability as adults. Therefore you have no means of determining whether dogs have souls.

Yes, they do. Because issues on the philosophy of science show up on other forums. For instance, in the Medicine forum now was a thread on Occam's Razor. That's philosophy of science -- theory evaluation. That's because the argument was in the next paragraph! You might try reading the entire post and argument next time before you reply.

No impact on the fact that ERV's falsify creationism and strongly support evolution. The main argument about ERVs was NOT that they were "random", but rather, if they were random or not, then there should be no pattern of relatedness to them. Think about this. If the insertion is not random but targets specific areas of the DNA, then every species with those areas should have the ERV. The problem is that this isn't what we see. Gorillas have some ERVs in common with us and chimps, from when the common ancestor was targeted. BUT, they don't have others even when the DNA area is the same. Yet your hypothesis says that they should, because the virus should put the ERV in every species where there is that sequence. Now, if the insertion is random and species are not related thru common ancestry, then there also should be no pattern of relatedness.

Elas: I have spotted an elementary flaw in your analysis. You are misrepresenting Einstein. "The problem with Einstein's formula is that it gives the energy in the direction of movement (the energy on the compressed lead radial). If the speed is zero then E = m regardless of volume! " E=mc^2 does not give "energy in the direction of movement". It gives the relation of energy to mass. The formula is essentiall E=km where k = a constant. It turns out that the constant is c^2 (remember, the speed of light in a vacuum is constant in Relativity). Thus, the formula works if the particle is at rest. You start with a premise that is a mistaken notion of what the E = mc^2 equation is. Therefore, with a wrong premise, all your logic from that point is also going to be wrong. This is probably one reason that you can't get your paper published. BTW, there seems to be 2 "new theories" here, with 2 different web pages. I have confused the two upon occasion.

How do you know classical terms require a sponsor? Have you tried? If so, can we see the e-mail telling you that you must have a sponsor? You are still not looking at this the same way I am. You are looking for a sponsor to give validity to your paper. I'm having you look for a sponsor to get qualified review of your paper. There is no guarantee that anyone you approach is going to agree to sponsor your paper. The point is to get feedback as to why they won't sponsor your paper. IOW, a critique by a physicist. You can then either decide that your ideas are totally wrong or modify the paper to address the criticisms. Please walk us thru how the CLF model gave you the equation B1-(A2*B1) and also how CLF gave you the constant such that "a constant is used to reduce the scale to that of the wavelength (diameter) table so that the observations can be matched to the wavelength table without further adjustment. (The observations will only match in one position)." Without the constant it appears that the scale is way above that of the wavelength.