lucaspa

May I ask what minority group you're in? Just curious, certainly not necessary. And yes, I would agree, when you're in the crosshairs it changes the intensity of your views.

But not necessarily. I'm white, male, heterosexual Anglo-Saxon Protestant.

Just keep in mind, the republicans / conservatives don't represent the personality of the rich and religious

No, just their interests. And Republicans don't represent the "religious", but rather one particular religion: Fundamentalism.

I see religion in these things when the believers depend on faith for one, and are unmoved by contrary facts for two.

Then your opposition to global warming is religion! Your opposition depends on faith that the small minority is right and you are unmoved by all the contrary facts to your position -- the ones that show global warming is happening and is caused by humans.

Why don't you hate your own position?

I'll just say public smoking bans aren't legitimately defended since the property is private - not public. You have no "right" to be on my property.

Let's see, does the owner have a "right" to randomly discharge a gun within the bar or restaurant or office? Why not? Because that bullet could hit you and harm you. Well, it is guaranteed that the smoke is going to hit you and get in your lungs. And the data says that the smoke will harm you. Enough of it and it can even kill you.

And if people demand freedom from smoke on my property, they are overstepping their authority.

Keep in mind, in my mind, we have strayed so far away and have mangled our rights to the point that some people are flabergasted at the idea of not having a right to force behavior on another.

And those have to be kept in check. For instance, if you are smoking in your own home I have no objection. It's your lungs. I'll even go along with the idea that you can inflict the smoke on your children.

I had a discussion a couple of months ago with a co-worker who was just dumbfounded and disgusted with me at the idea that as "employees" of a corporation, we don't have a right to force management to listen to our ideas. This was in reference to a PMEI process, introduced by the union to force the company to hear our ideas about how the work should be done.

You have the right to struggle to get management to listen to your ideas. I don't see how you can, in practice, "force" management to do so. After all, management can simply refuse, even if that means bankruptcy. I think your co-worker may have been confused on what the right was and said "forced to listen" instead of "struggle to get them to listen".

Either way, I have no right to force them to listen to me about a damn thing.

But don't you have the right to exert pressure on management to listen? Even go out on strike if the ideas are that important?

After all, that is what labor has done all thru history: forced management to not only listen but institute reforms such as higher wages, safer working conditions, health care, etc.

If we hold absolutely to your position, then you are a slave, not an employee.

Christians think they're doing god's work. I don't see that as selfish, but rather childishly misguided - but the consequences are worse.

And Christians have furnished most liberals in the past. However, now we have a new religion -- Fundamentalism -- that calls itself "Christian" but isn't. Fundamentalists aren't doing God's work; they are being selfish.

Although, I would point out that the private sector also invests research money in truely important stuff like medicine and so forth. Hospitals are full of equipment that was researched with private dollars. Probably none of it without the goal of profit in mind either.

All the company dollars were done with profit in mind. The basic research is done in academic labs. Only AFTER that is done and knowledge is found that is reasonably expected to earn a profit do the companies come in. Let's look at the field I am most familiar with: adult stem cells. Look at the source of funding for all first papers in adult stem cells: private or government. Non-profit. Only AFTER the adult stem cells are discovered -- and thus a possible product -- do you find companies involved. Either founded by the scientist or the invention licensed by the company. Then the company funds the pre-clinical and clinical trials.

But even HERE the goverment helps with what are called Small Business Innovative Research Grants -- SBIR. These are grants for risky initial studies. The studies that companies will NOT fund.

Anyway, which party promotes banning smoking in public?

Let's see, since there are several studies showing that second hand smoke harms people, why would you NOT ban it? As I learned about freedom: the freedom to swing your arm ends at my nose. So, the freedom to poison yourself with smoking ends at my lungs.

Which party got trans-fats banned in New York restaraunts?

That would be the Republican mayor.

Which party burns like garlic on a vampire about anything to do with "god" on money, in school, any public property?

That would be the conservatives who wrote the Constitition! You know, the one that said government shall do nothing to establish religion? Do you deny that theism is a religion?

Do I really need to go on?

Yes, because so far you are 3 strikes for 3 swings.

I'm not sure what your intent is in that last sentence. I'll just say don't punish conservatives for something that I asked about. Not sure if that's relevant, but I'm not coming at this from a conservative challenging you scientists...this really is genuine inquiry.

OK. The point is that the basic premise of capitalism -- as you stated it -- is wrong. Natural selection (which you mischaracterized as "survival of the fittest") does NOT entail unremitting direct competition between members of a species. Thus, your puzzlement that scientists aren't conservative and capitalist is answered: you started out with a wrong premise on what natural selection is. Therefore all your reasoning from that point is invalid.

Greed is a great motivator. Capitalism is full of R&D. You seriously believe that only the government invests in research?

I didn't say that. Look at what I wrote: "Especially research for knowledge's sake."

Capitalism does research geared to the next PRODUCT. It's not good at the basic stuff.

The government didn't pay for ipod research.

It paid for most of the research into integrated circuits and silicon chips on which the iPod depends. Same for cell phones. Much of the research on radio was done by the government.

Now, research for knowledge's sake, I'm sure is going to fall on government or private money that doesn't seek profit - no doubt about that.

And what kind of research do most scientists do? The stuff for knowledge's sake, or research that doesn't have an immediate product at the end.

Well, I guess I'd have to challenge the validity of the study since intolerance is a major characteristic of liberalism. They are intolerant of individuality and civil liberties. They are intolerant of anything associated with god, but have no issues with other fairy tales. Intolerance is just as ingrained in liberalism as it ever has been with conservatism. So, I think the study is either biased, or poorly executed.

And yet you've never read the Methods section, have you? This is argument ad hominem, pure and simple. Let's see, who was it that participated in the Civil Rights Movement for civil liberties? Conservatives? NOPE. Liberals. Who is it that wanted to protect black churches from bombings. Liberals again.

And no, liberals are NOT intolerant of God. They are about separation of church and state. Why? To PROTECT the liberties of people.

But the data is not too obvious to deny. Or else, why are scientists denying it?

You are confusing the scientists with the idea. And using Argument from Authority. For ANY idea, there are going to be a few people who don't accept it. For any number of emotional reasons. And that will include some scientists. Scientists, as people, can be just as emotional as anyone else. It is science that is unemotional. That's why I said you had to look at the DATA. The DATA is overwhelming.

I doubt, or at least, question the conclusion of this data. Yes you can measure the ice caps melting, and take stock of temperatures over the globe and conclude it's getting warmer - but you can't therefore conclude it's not a cycle and won't reverse as such.

Yes, you can. Because you can determine the causes of these events. And that cause is human activity. Also, you can use the geological record to look at cycles in the past. You can see if cycles happen this fast and how severe they are. Ice cores from Greenland and the Andes give us cycles for the past 100,000 years and more. None of them correspond to this.

That's just an example of some things I've read.

And welcome to denying the data. That's why I said you had to read the papers for yourself. Not just rely on a "he said, he said" situation.

Let me know when all of your buddies finally agree. I don't mean 51%. I mean like over 90%.

Been there, done that. The consensus is already well over 90%. Again, the problem of looking at "he said, he said" arguments is that the minority position is going to try to make their position appear stronger than it is. One way to look at consensus is to do a PubMed search on "global, warming". Look at the number of articles documenting it is happening vs the number of articles documenting it is not or that it is not human activity. The key here is "documenting". Not just rationalization arguments -- like your cycles argument -- but hard data.

I have no choice but to listen to one side AND the other.

Sure you do. I gave it to you. LOOK AT THE SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE YOURSELF! Science and Nature are in any public library. Most people live within a half hour drive of a college. Go use their library for articles in other journals not in your public library. The internet gives several basic search engines of the scientific literature I mentioned one: PubMed. There are others.

I think you WANT to listen to "both sides" because you have a prejudice for one side and don't want to find out how wrong it is.

Remember, this isn't an emotional appeal but a logical one. It's logical to agree with GW for the interum (due to the minor majority), and quite irresponsible for me to draw conclusions on GW, due to the minor majority.

False premise: a minor majority. It isn't. Not within the scientific community. It's damn near unanimous, with the holdouts doing so because they are getting paid to do so.

What you're demanding is a decision today - right now. If I do not declare my unending allegiance to the GW catastrophe today, when the experts of said issue are split today, then I'm sitting in ignorance?

That isn't what I said. I said the DATA is already overwhelming. There is no "decision" to make. Your ignorance is ignorance of the data and refusal to go look at it.

You are demanding a conclusion without the facts to empirically prove that conclusion.

No, I'm saying the empirical facts are already there. The conclusion is obvious with the current data. I'm just saying that your refusal to look at the data is religion: the religion of already having decided and wanting the world to be the way you want, not what it is.

Evolution ≠ Darwinism, so the Creationist use of the term not only to describe all ideas about biological evolution, but the various bits of geology, cosmology, and philosophy they don't like as well is abusive and misleading.

Among scientists, evolution = Darwinism. All those other theories have been falsified.

And I fully agree that creationists misuse the term! Never said otherwise. My initial post was in response to a specific claim by Mokele -- a claim that is mistaken.

The arguments within Darwinism are about the relative importance of genetic drift, natural selection, sexual selection, and endosymbiosis to the "modification" within "descent with modification". For instance, in Kimura's "neutral theory", the idea is that many (if not most) characteristics of living organisms come about thru genetic drift.

Also, much of the argument is against a strawman version of neo-Darwinism. The strawman version is that neo-Darwinism only accepts accumulation of minor changes in individual alleles as being responsible for "modification". Neo-Darwinism never stated that, but that's another story.

So, many of the objections in print are because the scientists are also misuing the term "Darwinist".

Exactly. Why should we let Creationists rob of us of a perfectly useful term?

We shouldn't. That is a major part of my objection to Mokele's post: he would let the creationists set the terms.

I said Dennett wasn't a scientist, that makes him a creationist ? And it's true, most people that misuse the term "Darwinism" are creationists. Mokele knows very well "Darwinism" can be used to mean "evolution by natural selection", but it shouldn't be used to describe evolution as a whole....Also, I never said words like "Darwinism" or "Darwinian" were not used by scientists.

Phil, you are moving the goalposts. Again, let me remind you of Mokele's original statement: ""It uses the word "darwinism". Nobody uses that word except creationists," Notice that Mokele said "that word", not a particular defintion. If Mokele "knows very well", he didn't state it! I think, instead of defending Mokele, your time would be better spent advising him to be more careful in his statements.

You certainly implied that use of the words "Darwinism" or "Darwinian" was not used by scientists. After all, what was your criticism of my use of Dennett as an example that people other than creationists use the term "Darwinism"? Let me remind you: "I've heard scientists (Dennett isn't a scientist)" as though that made a difference in light of Mokele's "Nobody uses that word".

Simple, natural selection is only one of the mechanism of evolution, it's simply part of the theory of evolution. Motoo Kimura, Tomoko Ohta, Susumu Ohno, Masatoshi Nei, and many others, they don't consider themselves Darwinists/Selectionists because they don't think natural selection is the most important mechanism of evolution (they don't think darwinian evolution doesn't exist. however). It's as simple as that.

That's splitting some hairs. For one, you are moving the goalposts again by introducing the term "Darwinists/Selectionists". Where did that "selectionists" come from? It sounds like the people on the list are making their own definition of "Darwinist". Which is, of course, what we complain about creationists doing! Sauce for the goose.

Darwinism doesn't say that natural selection is the ONLY process in evolution. It does say that natural selection is the only way to get adaptations. And quite frankly, none of your list disagrees with that.

Evolution is "descent with modification". That was Darwin's definition and the one the National Academy of Science still uses.

"Biological evolution concerns changes in living things during the history of life on Earth. It explains that living things share common ancestors. Over time, biological processes such as natural selection give rise to new species. Darwin called this process "descent with modification," which remains a good definition of biological evolution today." Appendix and Frequently Asked Questions Science and Creationism, A View from the NAS, the section "What is Evolution?" pg 27

So, even your list are adhere to Darwinism.

I said very clearly (post #9, it's not very far); When a scientist say "Darwinism", it means "evolution by natural selection". When a creationist (or Dawkins) say "Darwinism", they mean "the theory of evolution". It's an important distinction.

1. No one has anything other than Darwinism to account for adaptations. What's more, Darwinism does refer to the theory of evolution.

2. When creationists say "Darwinism", they do NOT mean "the theory of evolution". They mean atheism. They also include within "evolution" such things as abiogenesis, origin of planets, geology, and cosmology.

So your problem is that you are misrepresenting Darwinism, its use by non-creationists, and its use by creationists. Three swings, three strikes.

Tough one, but the best answer would be treat them as though they are a person.

WHY is that the "best answer"? You asserted that as fact, but it's not. It's your opinion. I may agree or disagree, but in either situation you need to explain your reasoning.

Brains in jars have feelings too!

How do you know? If the jar does not have a complex nutrient and oxygenation system, obviously the brain does not -- because the cells are dead!

People get upset over unplugging a person in a vegetative state, and the brain is probably doing more thinking than the person in the coma.

Here the data is against you. When the autopsy of Terri Schiavo was done, it was found there was NO thinking going on, because the structure to do so (the cortex) no longer existed. She was running on the cerebellum's autonomic systems.

All those shouting so loudly for Schiavo either got suddenly silent or tried to pretend the autopsy did not exist.

Yes, that's exactly correct. "Person," from a scientific perspective, is necessarily going to be a term defined with arbitrary cutoff points. I revert to Freeman Dyson's wisdom: "Defining life is a question for lawyers, not scientists."

So is this appropriate in Science Forums? I notice several threads on the same basic question: when does "human" life begin.

You allude to this later in the post:

Yes. Science can't make these decisions for us, but, as I see it, it is highly relevant in two ways.

 

First, it can give us more data on which to base our decisions.

 

Secondly (and more importantly) it can create, via technology, new situations that render previously adequate frameworks obsolete. Right now, person is only vaguely defined: "like us," as Dak says, or "equivalent to homo sapiens."

Yes, science can provide data, but that doesn't make decisions. Ultimately, those decisions are decided due to ethics. The data has to be evaluated within ethical theories. So what you need for this discussion are people trained in ethics. Such do exist.

Now, science doesn't always do the informing. In the case of the "blacks are not human" debate, it was decided that people of African ancestry were fully human long before the genetic data became available. Remember, the Civil War was fought 1861-1864.

I do not, however, necessarily agree with the absolute emphasis on legality. I don't believe that ethics=laws. We should try to base our laws on our ethics.

I tried to separate legal and ethical and always said "legal and ethical". That "and" is not the same as "=". I agree that, ideally, laws correspond to ethics. As you noted, sometimes they don't. When they don't, conflict eventually results -- as in the Civil War and the Civil Rights struggle -- as the two are brought into congruence.

Right now, person is only vaguely defined: "like us," as Dak says, or "equivalent to homo sapiens."

Right now, "person" is defined as "a member of homo sapiens". Dak is being optimistic that "person" has been extended to other species or entities. It is what several people are trying to do, but it hasn't been done yet.

This vagueness causes problems with questions like abortion and terminating life-support for the braindead.

Right. But why? Because the debate is whether the entity is a member of homo sapiens. In the case of abortion, is the embryo-fetus a member of homo sapiens? In the case of the braindead, has the individual stopped being a member of homo sapiens? (BTW, notice that in the case of capital punishment, there is an implicit argument that the criminal has forfeited his membership in homo sapiens.)

However, those debates are nothing compared to the potential debates over things like designer organisms (when even "homo sapiens" becomes a more and more arbitrary category) or AI, and we should be aware of those difficulties before we push technology in those directions.

You are making an argument for ethicists or moralists, not scientists, to discuss the situation. Now, in an ideal world, yes, we would consider the ethical issues before we do the technology. In practice, humans have never done that. Technology first, ethics second. However, the recent bans on human cloning indicate the humans may be learning to consider ethics before the situation is forced on them by the technology.

But the website I posted to Dak -- http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html -- argues against it.

I suspect we are going to have several wars -- analogous to the Civil War -- to establish the rights (as humans) of chimeras and artificial intelligences.

speaking of chimeras, the fact that human/pig (etc) chimeras exist in people who have undergone organ transplants, and who are still concidered a 100% person, kinda proves that people will concider at least partially histologically chimeric individuals as people.

 

i suspect if the chimerisism affected the brain it'd be different, tho.

This, technically, isn't chimerism, Dak. It's humans with xenogenic transplants. Chimeras are the result of introducing genes from another species into the genome. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01/0125_050125_chimeras.html

ROSA mice are also chimeras -- they have bacterial genes inserted into the mouse genome. Note that, in this case, the species is still regarded as mouse.

More to the point, these "studies" that get released to the media are all about political correctness.

Are they? Was global warming "politically correct" when first proposed? NO! Was the idea that smoking was harmful to human health "politically correct" when the first studies came out? NO! Most people smoked and wanted to be told that smoking was OK.

The ones that "catch on" are usually the ones with data behind them. Look at Star Wars. It was "politically correct" because Reagan said it was. But the science was flawed. So it didn't "catch on".

The policitally-correct ones catch on and form policy. The politically-incorrect ones become the subjects of demonization. I realize that's not "science", but I say that in answer to (I think) your question earlier (what makes it PC).

Let me guess, you label policies that you don't like as being "politically correct". Saying a policy is "politically correct" isa "form of demonization", isn't it? Because you are saying, when you use the term "politically correct" that the idea is wrong but accepted anyway.

Clever grasp of rhetoric, you have there. And yes, the conservative movement is very good at rhetoric.

And the global warming religion is an example of a belief growing bigger than the facts to support it. That's conformity at work.

No, it's accepting data that is too obvious to deny. That conservatives do deny the data is an example of their being emotionally driven.

I tend to lean more to the latter. I like to say 'Today I believe in global warming, but I'd rather be convinced'. Being a layman, that's all I can really do. Logically, I must follow the majority of what science seems to be saying.

No, as a layman what you say is "Today I accept global warming 1) as being caused by human activity and 2) will cause major climactic change." To do this you should have looked at some of the papers in Science and Nature and at least read the summaries on the various large studies on the climate.

You do not "believe" in scientific theories. You accept them because the data leaves you no choice. And if you say "I'd like to be convinced", then that means you took the effort to educate yourself in the subject so that you were familiar with the data. To sit in ignorance and make no effort but say "I'm not convinced" is simply letting your emotions decide for you -- against the idea.

If you are going to "hear the critics out", then you have to make yourself aware of what the data IS. Otherwise all you are doing is letting the critics appeal to your emotions and self-interest.

There's nothing wrong with statistical correlations so long as you recognize the inherent danger in trusting them when making policy. How'd that work out for silicon breast implants, Mokele? How many drugs have been yanked from the market only to find out later there was nothing wrong?

It worked for the silicon implants. Later studies did show direct deterimental effects of silicon on the immune system.

And, how many drugs have been yanked from the market only to find out later there was nothing wrong? Please give us a list!

More to the point, these "studies" that get released to the media are all about political correctness. The policitally-correct ones catch on and form policy. The politically-incorrect ones become the subjects of demonization. I realize that's not "science", but I say that in answer to (I think) your question earlier (what makes it PC).

As for the subject at hand, the study Phil mentioned is fine so far as it goes, which is not very far at all. It may show, as you say, that "traits like traditionalism and intolerance of ambiguity are associated with conservatism", but it doesn't even remotely show that conservatism is an inherently flawed or incorrect philosophy in any way. It simply does not address that issue.

Yes, the study did indirectly indicate that conservatism may be inherently flawed. For one, it results in traits -- such as intolerance -- that are contradictory to one of the major ethical bases of conservatism; in this case Christianity.

The problem you have is that philosophy is outside science. ALL science can do is show the results of a given philosophy. It is up to people, from beliefs outside of science, to decide whether those results are "bad" or "good".

The reason why this seems odd to me is because while I realize there are dozens and dozens of science categories, it seems all understand the basics of survival of the fittest. Most scientists seem to understand this concept on a deeper level than the rest of us, irregardless of their specialty. So, the people who understand nature's capitalism better than most of us, reject that concept in governing humans. Why is that?

Because "survival of the fittest" does NOT mean out and out competition between individuals! The "struggle for existence" is metaphorical and not a face-off between 2 individuals! Darwin was very clear on this, but it appears conservatives and capitalists don't read Darwin:

"The Term, Struggle for Existence, Used in a Large Sense

I should premise that I use this term in a large and metaphorical sense including dependence of one being on another, and including (which is more important) not only the life of the individual, but success in leaving progeny. TWo canine animals, in a time of dearth, may be truly said to struggle witheach other which shall get food and live. But a plant on the edge of a desert is said to struggle for life against the drought, though more properly it should be said to be dependent on the moisture. A plant which annually produces a thousand seeds, of which only one of an average comes to maturity, may be more truly said to struggle with the ground. The mistletoe is dependent on the apple and a few other trees, but can only in a fr-fetched sense be said to struggle with these trees, for, if too many of these parasites grow on the same tree, it languishes and dies. But several seedling mistletoes, growing close together on the same branch, may more truly be said to struggle with each other. As the mistletoe is disseminated by birds, its existence depends on them; and it may methodically be said to struggle with other fruit-bearing plants, in tempting the birds to devour and thus disseminate its seeds. In these several senses, which pass into each other, I use for convenience' sake the general term of Struggle for Existence."

Not only that, but for every example of cut-throat direct competition in nature, you can find 2 examples where survival depends on cooperation between individuals.

So, why do the majority of scientists seem to dislike unhindered capitalism, when it's basically the model they are specialists in and is proven to work?

Unhindered capitalism, by historical example, leads to benefits for a few but destruction of the society -- including scientists!

Also look at it this way -- who pays the research money? Government. Why? Because capitalism can't look forward beyond the next quarterly report to invest in research. Especially research for knowledge's sake.

I don't really think a concise definition is possible, but I'd like to hear some ideas. I say this because I believe the most profound ethical dillemas of this century will revolve about this question.

You put your finger on the problem when you said "the most profound ethical dilemmas"

You are not asking "what is a person" from a scientific standpoint. What matters is what constitutes a "person" from a LEGAL and ETHICAL standpoint.

All your examples revolve around when an entity is LEGALLY and ethically a person, and thus able to appeal to laws humans have set up to regulate behavior between humans.

Slavery/racism:

Abortion: This debate is all about basic disagreements over when is the beginning of a human being with the rights guaranteed thereof.

There you go. As you noted "Scientifically, it's an arbitrary distinction."

So why is this in the Science Forums? To show the interface between science and ethics?

Animal rights:

Genetic engineering: Even if humans are people and no other natural animals are, what about human/animal hybrids?

You also mean "chimeras" here. And that's a good question. There are several sci-fi books and movies discussing that topic: how many animal genes would it take to decide the individual wasn't "human"?

As I said, here you are out of science. You need to look to sources of ethics/morality to decide. As a possible guideline, you might want "do unto others as you would have them do unto you"

Suppose you have a pea plant with purple flowers, and you are asked what is its genotype. You do not know what its parents looked like and cannot find this information anywhere. You have no other plants to mate it with. How can you find out what its genotype is? explain fully.

You look it up from people who did know what the parents looked like and did do the mating experiments.

I've heard scientists (Dennett isn't a scientist) using "Darwinism" to talk about evolution by natural selection, and sometime, to denotes selectionists, but they're not referring to the theory of evolution as a whole. Dawkins is an exception.

Mokele's claim wasn't about scientists. He said "It uses the word "darwinism". Nobody uses that word except creationists,"

Now, would you like to tell me Dennett is a creationist?

Please tell me the difference between "evolution by natural selection" and "the theory of evolution as a whole".

Science. 2005 Aug 12;309(5737):996-7. Evolution. Vatican astronomer rebuts cardinal's attack on Darwinism. Holden C.

Harv Ment Health Lett. 1998 Jan;14(7):5-7. Darwinism and psychiatry.

Nesse R.

Silverstein AM.

Darwinism and immunology: from Metchnikoff to Burnet.

Nat Immunol. 2003 Jan;4(1):3-6.

2: Flemming C, Goodall J. Dangerous Darwinism.

Public Underst Sci. 2002 Jul;11(3):259-71.

PMID: 12430530 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

3: Mayr E. The philosophical foundations of Darwinism.

Proc Am Philos Soc. 2001 Dec;145(4):488-95.

Notice the author of that last one: Ernst Mayr himself.

Here's a recent paper. It's a review of cancer, but look at the bold in the abstract:

Cancer Lett. 2007 Jan 22; [Epub ahead of print]

Variation, "evolution", immortality and genetic instabilities in tumour cells.

Bignold LP.

Division of Tissue Pathology, Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science, P.O.

Box 14, Rundle Mall, Adelaide, SA 5068, Australia.

The pathological characteristics of tumour cells often include variation of

their histopathological features (i.e. "degrees of de-differentiation") between

cases of the same tumour type and between different foci within individual

tumours. Usually, only a few cell lines from tumours are immortal. Currently,

somatic mutation, replicative infidelity of DNA and aneuploidy are suggested as alternative mechanisms of genomic disturbance underlying tumours. Nevertheless, apart from Hansemann's ideas of "anaplasia" and "de-differentiation" (proposed in the 1890s), and supposed "evolutionary themes" in cancer cell biology, little has been published concerning how histopathologic variation and immortality in tumour cells might arise. This paper reviews applications of the concepts of "variation" to tumours, including concepts of "evolution" and "cellular Darwinism". It is proposed that combinations of somatic mutation, DNA replicative infidelity and aneuploidy may explain the variabilities in tumours, and provide immortality in occasional tumour cells. A possible model involves (i) an initial somatic mutation causing reduced replicative fidelity of DNA, which could be variable in intensity, and thus give rise to variations between cases; (ii) a phase of replicative infidelity of DNA causing daughter cells lines to develop various abnormalities to different degrees, and hence provide for variation between areas of the same tumour. As a last event (iii) occasional

asymmetric chromosomal distributions (aneuploidy) might "refresh" the ability of a daughter cell to replicate DNA faithfully causing them to become immortal. Thus extensively mutant and variable, hyperploid, and occasionally immortal cells might arise.

J Math Biol. 2006 Jul;53(1):15-60. Epub 2006 Apr 24.

A theory of Fisher's reproductive value.

Grafen A.

St John's College, Oxford, OX1 3JP, United Kingdom. alan.grafen@sjc.ox.ac.uk

The formal Darwinism project aims to provide a mathematically rigorous basis for optimisation thinking in relation to natural selection. This paper deals with the situation in which individuals in a population belong to classes, such as sexes, or size and/or age classes. ...

This is just a few citations I got back just from a quick search of PubMed using the search term "darwinism".

"The rise of modern genetics, built on the foundations laid by Mendel, added considerably more to Darwinism than the solution of this difficulty about the preservation of variety. " C.H. Waddington, "Theories of Evolution" in A Century of Darwin edited by S.A. Barnett, 1958 pp. 9-10

12: Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1999 Oct 12;96(21):11904-9 Individuality and adaptation across levels of selection: how shall we name and generalize the unit of Darwinism? Gould SJ, Lloyd EA

If scientists don't use the term Darwinism, would you like to tell me how the editors of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science let the term stand in the title?

Phil, creationists often use "Darwinism" as a synonym for "atheism". They are misusing the term. However, that creationists misuse the term is no reason for anyone to say that only creationist or only non-scientists use the word "Darwinism".

fair point... thank you

You are welcome. As I said, if you find a claim in Milton that you think is valid, let us know. Be specific so that we know exactly what Milton claimed. The overall claim "evolution is disproved" is vague and can't be specifically addressed. Altho you could go to PubMed at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi and enter "evolution" as your search term, and look at the sheer number of articles that support evolution.

You can refine your search in such ways as "evolution, speciation, artificial, selection" and look at Milton's claim that no new species has been produced by artificial selection.

Hey, everybody that voted yes on the POLL, private message me, so we can chat some

I don't think this is healthy. It looks like you are trying to take this out of public scrutiny Why? So you can hide from the ethical issues intead of confronting them?

Nearly all bad ethical decisions have been made by a small group of people who all thought the same way and avoided public scrutiny. Think of the syphilus experiments, sterilization of mentally retarded patients, the Enron scandal, the current scandal over firing federal prosecutors, Watergate, Iran-Contra, etc.

This is not something you want to run off and see if you can do on your own. There are serious ethical concerns here -- both for the health of the pregnant females (of either species) if there are problems producing a viable hybrid and for the hybrid if it is successful.

Excellent point. You said this better than I could have. Hybrids should either have all the responsibilities and rights of a human or none of them. Anything in between seems like exploitation..

It's exploitation because we don't know if they are human or not. Are the hybrids humans or animals. It's about understanding what is "human".

The same consideration applies to human cloning. This is what the furor is all about: are clones people or property? If we don't make any (either hybrids or clones), we don't have to confront the problem.

perhaps this thread should be about morals and science. Is there any expirment that should not be attempted? If so this is it.

Dr. Stuart Newman believes that making human-animal chimeras should not be done. He has gotten patents on this concept precisely so that they will NOT be done (for the 20 years of the patent, anyway).

A couple of years ago some scientists published about a new way to modify viruses. Such a process could be used to make viruses more lethal. They debated long and hard about whether they should publish. They decided to, at the end, because the knowledge is out there to be found by anyone, including terrorists. So, if they made the knowledge public, at least people would be forewarned.

As I noted, there are 2 ways we can explore the question of the ability of humans-chimps to produce viable hybrids that does not involve taking a fetus to term. One of them doesn't even involve making a fetus at all.

I'm beginning to wonder if this is analogous. Perhaps it would be better to ask if chimpanzees consider animals with more limited cognitive abilities than themselves in their moral code, such as monkeys.

You can look in this article to start finding answers:

10. MD Hauser, Morals, apes, and us. Discover 21: 50-55, Feb. 2000

The experiments I remember in this article indicated that primates looked on members of their own species as applicable to a "moral code", but I don't remember if that extends to other species. The group of chimps that broke out of a reserve in Africa last and killed several humans in the process apparently didn't have any "morals" about killing humans. They could have escaped without killing the humans, but went out of their way to do so.

I am afraid this experiment has already occured

What experiment? Interbreeding chimps and humans? If so, please provide us with the citation. As far as I can tell, the experiment has NOT been done.

What would cause the suffering? Who is saying it has to be done inhumanely? I'm not sure why you think it would be alone, either. We would learn more if we had more than one, anyway. What if we were to breed a few dozen and have them raised almost as though they were human children? IIRC, this was done with chimps with great results. Where would the suffering come in there?

The question, yourdadonapogos, that you keep ignoring is: are these hybrids human or not, and thus have the Constitution and other laws for humans apply to them? By the bold above, you don't think they are. But why not? What percentage of human alleles do you need to qualify as human with the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". If we raise the hybrids as "almost human", aren't we depriving them of both liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

Close but not quite, you need to pruify the semen to extract the sperm, and remove the antibodies that would cause a rejection.

The antigens that cause rejection (not the antibodies, but antigens that provoke an immune response from the host) are on the cell itself. In mammals they are the major histocompatibility complexes I or II. These are membrane proteins.

So "purifying" the semen to sperm doesn't do anything about that. All it does is concentrate the sperm.

taking the semen from the donor, mixing it with isotonic saline at body temp (to prevent shock) with the addition of a small ammount of dextrose, and an anti biotic such as gentimyacin, the semen can be carefully mixed with the saline by several gentle inversions of the test tube they are placed in a centrifuge, and allow to spin for several mintues (forgive me I don't have my notes handy at this point for RCF's or RPM's) the sperm will form a pellette at the bottom of the tube, and can be gentley drawn off with a pippette, this whole process can be repeated a second to to insure purity, but this sometimes reduces the fertility of the sperm.

Cells are usually pelleted at 300 x g (300 times the force of gravity at the earth's surface).

So, if chimp sperm is immunologically incompatible with humans, or vice versa, processing isn't going to change that.

Now, it appears that MHC-I doesn't present antigens like other cells, so the MHC-1 on sperm cells would not be antigenic in and of themselves.

"I'm going to restrict the discussion to the MHC class I complex for the remainder of this post. MHC class I molecules load peptides that have been processed by intracellular proteases and present them on the surface of cells. This process occurs in nearly every cell in the body, with the exceptions of sperm cells and some neurons. As MHC class I molecules load peptides that have been derived from the proteins produced by the host and those produced by potential invaders such as viruses, this makes them critical in immune function for tolerisation of the effector cells that initiate immune responses." http://immunoblogging.blogspot.com/2006/02/evolution-of-immune-system-mhc-part-ii.html

Chimps demonstrate the ability to use sign language. Hell, they even have basic moral codes. They are plenty sentient in and of themselves. Again, being human has no moral importance.

Morals are how humans decide to treat each other and other species. For instance, the chimps that recently killed several people in Africa were not charge and tried for murder. Why? Because we don't consider the morals of humans -- "thou shall not murder" -- to apply to chimps. You say chimps are sentient. Therefore, by your logic, we should have arrested the chimps, put them on trial, and punish them like humans if convicted. I don't see you advocating that.

The question comes down to: if a human-chimp hybrid is made, does it have all the legal, ethical rights and responsibilities of members of H. sapiens?

You haven't answered that.

The Origin & Future Of Intelligence

WGA Registration Number: 1185858

 

Written By: Giorgio Martoni

http://www.infinitytree.org/

I think Giorgio Martoni needs to read up on evolutionary biology and basic physics. The origin of life has been studied, as well as the origin of intelligence.

I have a number of other theories that suggest the distinction of energy and matter might be incorrect, but I will not go into that now.

Ever hear of Albert Einstein? How about the equation E (energy) = m (mass) x c^2?

That shows that matter and energy are different forms of the same thing. There is no "distinction".

One unanswered question, is how does a fish get the genetic code to grow legs and walk on land. The answer to this is simple.

yes, variation and natural selection. Been done. We know of several mechanisms that alter the base sequence in genes and even ADD new DNA.

Birds have evolved digestive systems to safely acquire energy from the seeds of plants.

That is why they are born as eggs.

We also safely acquire energy from the seeds of plants. Ever eat corn? How about peanuts? Potatoes?

Yet we aren't born as eggs, are we?

You need to learn to test your ideas before you post. In your testing, go thru what you already know to try to find a way to show your idea to be wrong.