proximity1

Is that directed to me? If so, it's not easy to answer with a simple "yes" or "no". Much of the commentary in the thread seems to me to present a number of implied views about science, the grand enterprise, rather than scientists, the plodding and fallible practitioners of science, without making what's implied quite clear, quite explicit. It seems to me that the recurring references to "science" are a convenient way to avoid and deflect the problems which are inherent in scientists and their everyday enterprise--which goes as, of course, for all sorts of other people who conduct some sort of prolonged enterprise--research, education, business management, law--what have you. In all of them there is theory and there is practice and it's much easier to hold up the ideals of the theory as though these were in fact exemplary of common practice. Generally, the common practices fall far short of the ideals of the theory so there's a clear strategic advantage gained in trying to insist on keeping the focus on the idea and the ideals of "science" but these are rarely or never actually lived up to. Am I disagreeing with you? I don't know. All I know is what I observe here and elsewhere about scientists and science and those who are or who pretend to be their defenders or detractors. My position is fairly simple. "Science" is a wonderful thing in the abstract sense as opposed to the human world of scientific practice, which is sometimes admirable, sometimes deplorable, depending very much on the particulars--the individuals concerned, their habits, ways of thinking and behaving. As with all other cultural endeavors, if society in general is in decline for brief or extended periods, this degradation typically touches and influences, or can, many, many aspects of a living culture--plastic arts, literature, morals, business affairs, and, no less, the practice of science. Something that has distinguished the practice of science in the 20th century--especially so and more and more so since the end of World War I (1914-1918)--from the practice of science from, say, the 17th through part of the 19th centuries is the way in which today science has become a complete captive of corporate power and the high-finance that goes with that--research institutions and universities, whether private or public are fully implicated in that. In a way that marks our times off from the centuries past, it is now practically impossible for many areas of science research to be done outside the realm of concentrated political and financial power and its controlling interests. I think that this bears importantly, though, on all the general issues of how scientists (and especially researchers) behave professionally and that it includes very directly their readiness to give consideration to novel theoretical developments. Other than this specific point, whether our times are particularly deplorable is very hard to say. I tend to think that our present cultural faults and sufferings are just the current versions of what has generally been the case throughout history. But that's somewhat depressing since it suggests that progress is not only very transitory and fragile but perhaps simply a matter of more or less convenient illusion. I also think that an aspect of what makes the thread interesting is that, as I see it, anyway, we live in times which are technologically still quite impressive and this impressiveness casts a glow which tends to place scientists in a still favorable light among many--though I think that's a simplistic and erroneous confusion of technology with science and the people who practice it. I'm not saying that the confusion describes your part or thinking; I'm adding it for what it's worth in the mix of this discussion--a topic with multîple and important facets, not all of which get our attention. ____________________ As a Postscript, here's an article I can't access right away but which I'll try and look up in a library and read it when it arrives; meanwhile, for those who do have access to the journal Nature in one form or another, there's this in the current issue: Research grants: Conform and be funded Joshua M. Nicholson1 & John P. A. Ioannidis2 Affiliations Corresponding author Journal name: Nature Volume: 492, Pages: 34–36 Date published: (06 December 2012) DOI: doi:10.1038/492034a Published online 05 December 2012

Allow me to offer some thoughts on that one-- In general, and to anyone who takes any honest overview of the histories of various sciences --I make no exceptions at all-- one has to notice that to account for "science's" success (note: this way of putting it is itself a telling way to pose the matter since "science" is a pure abstraction--though throughout this thread its (i.e. "science's) self-descibed "defenders" consistently present the matter as one of "science" when, in fact, we're concerned here with people, scientists, not formal abstractions called "science") but to get back to my main point--- scientists' success, is generally and overwhelmingly a matter of sheer plain stumbling, feeling around, trial-and-error rewarded by plain accident in most cases, that is how,when viewed over a long stretch of a field's practitioners' history, scientists' successes are mainly to be accounted for. All research, all researchers, are above all indebted to something that is sheer accident. It doesn't matter that they had a hypothesis, or that "they were looking for "X" and "found it." The fact remains that in virtually every case, something completely essential in their work and its success was put down to a chance occurrance. Period. I have yet to hear of any reliable account of any advance in any science coming about without a very essential component of this chance element. Scientists, along with all the rest of what they do, essentially "luck into" whatever the case may be---and this, first and foremost includes an imponderable element which, for lack of a better term, we call "inspiration". This entire site would benefit greatly if these simple and essential features of human investigatory enterprise were noticed and honestly accounted for and admitted. But, it seems to me that, since no actual science is done here, what comes in effect to be the driving imperative at this site is to lay down and enforce a very blinkered view of things, and to hostily attack any and all unconventional thinking that goes outside the lines inside which participants may use their crayons to color.

With relevance to a recent news report in the New York Times concerning T-Cell therapy for lymphoblastic lukemia, the following article presents some interesting insights on the processes involved: By Pierre Sonigo, the article (here in English) was later adapted for inclusion (Chapter 5, "Cellules en liberté," written by Sonigo) in a text jointly written by Sonigo and Jean Jacques Kupiec, "Ni Dieu, ni gène: pour une autre théorie de l'hérédité, " (2000 (November), Editions du Seuil / Points Sciences, Paris) Title: Immune Cell Performances And Metabolism, an Ecological Interpretation (excerpt) Advantages and requirements of specialized predation : antigen presentation in the immune system How do the proposed definitions of self and non-self accommodate experimental observations and knowledge concerning T-cell molecular mechanics ? T-cells are MHC restricted : they recognize antigens only when processed by proteolysis and presented in the context of an homologous MHC molecule. T-cell receptors are generated by random genetic recombination. Thymus cells carry MHC molecules loaded with diverse peptides from the organism. During embryogenesis, three fates are observed : T-cells that do not react with MHC die. T-cells that react with a high affinity to MHC also die (see a later paragraph for discussion about mechanisms of cell death). Only T-cells that react with an intermediate affinity are positively selected to constitute the T-cell repertoire (reviewed and discussed in refs. 13-16). Let us examine the consequences of the alimentary chain hypothesis, which considers that peptides presented in the MHC constitute an essential food supply for the T-cells. This easily explains death of low affinity cells because they are unable to get peptide food from the MHC and starve. Death of cells with a high affinity receptor are more difficult to explain. High affinity might cause exhaustion of the peptide preys by their T-cells predators, and rapid subsequent disappearance of such predators. It might also cause " mechanical " difficulties in capture and internalization of presented peptides. Finally, the cells with the intermediate affinity will engage in a dynamic equilibrium of food exchange, based on peptides from the self. In the normal situation, the number of T-cells is stable and adapted to the abundance of "self-peptide food" provided by normal cells. This is supported by the presence of autoimmune reactive clones in the normal situation. Destructive auto-reactivity occurs by displacement of this equilibrium to the benefit of T-cells. In the prevalent regulation or signal-based interpretations, auto-immunity is considered as a dysregulation of T-cell reactivity, resulting for example from inadequate signaling (14,15). This explains why autoimmunity might follow cellular destructions of diverse cause (traumatic, infectious, etc...). In the metabolic-based interpretation, self peptides constitute an important metabolic resource for T-cells. The consequences are similar : autoimmunity might also result from a transient increase in self peptide production, increasing in turn the number of self consuming T-cells. When an external resource (potential antigen) is introduced in the system, the succession of events will depend on the amount and diversity of the new molecules. If the amount is low, or the diversity is high, specialization for capture will not be a sufficient selective advantage and all the resources will be captured by non specialized cells (phagocytes). If the amount of a homogeneous resource is high enough to support specialization for it, specific immunity will develop based on selected B and T lymphocytes. This is illustrated by the low efficacy of the specific immune response despite an intense macrophagic activation, when confronted to highly variable pathogens such as Human Immunodeficiency Virus. Interestingly, T-cells do not specialize for capture of the antigen directly. They recognize peptide products of antigen digestion by the phagocytes and antigen presenting cells. As structural diversity of short peptides is lower than structural diversity of larger molecules, the repertoire of antigen receptors (either immunoglobulins or T-cell receptors) will cover more easily a repertoire of short peptides (either linear epitopes or processed antigen, respectively) than a repertoire of large molecules. Processing thus allows a smaller number of cells to cover the whole diversity of possible resources. Direct specialization for large molecules (peptides, glycolipids) will be possible only when they contain structural repetition, as it is the case for example at the surface of infectious agents or for T-independent B antigens (19). Cytokines : a food network Cytokines (from cyto = cell and kine = movement) are proteins secreted primarily from leukocytes that bind to receptors on the cell surface, with the primary result of activating cell proliferation and/or differentiation. Cytokines are remarkable for their ubiquitous and redundant spectrum of activities, as specificity for a given cell type is exceptional. For these reasons, the " cytokine network " is often referred to as a typical example of complex regulated exchange of information between cells, necessary for immune response coordination (see refs. 21,21 for review). It is remarkable that the cytokine network has many features of an alimentary network : specialization without strict specificity, importance for activation and reproduction, succession of local exchanges in a micro-environment. I hypothesize that cytokines constitute a proteic resource for cells, explaining their trophic activity. I called it " cytokine-steak " hypothesis : given the weight ratios, an active dose of cytokine for a cell is equivalent to a nice piece of meat for us ! This food network might have originated as a consequence of the metabolic importance of proteins and amino-acids. Accordingly, cytokines are highly related to amino acid metabolism (22) or nutrition balance (23,24). Would alimentary specialization at the cell level be sufficient to explain the diversity and functions of cytokines and cytokine receptors ? Some answers might come from comparison of animal cells with multicellular animals. Although amino-acids are essential building blocks, their synthesis is unequally distributed amongst the living world. It requires for example nitrogen fixation, a central element in ecosystem formation (25,26). To a greater extent than glucids or lipids, amino-acid and proteins often constitute a limiting resource in the animal kingdom. Animals obtain amino-acids from other organisms rather than by de novo synthesis. In this case, amino-acids will not be captured as free molecules, but included into proteins. Although life uses a limited number of amino-acids, diversity of proteins is susceptible to generate a large variety of food specialization. Animals are indeed adapted for efficient capture of the most abundant protein food in their proximity. For example, some are specialized for vegetal proteins capture, other for animal protein capture. It seems that animals are entirely built around this specialization : teeth, digestion apparatus, locomotion apparatus, metabolic equipment often reflect protein specialization (vegetarian, carnivorous ...). In the same way, cells might be adapted to the most abundant protein resource in their proximity, as reflected by the specialization of their surface receptors. Just like animals, cells are limited by an hydrophobic " skin " (lipid membranes) which represents a barrier to hydrophilic substances. Cells had to develop a dynamic system of protein capture using a wide ensemble of " sticky " proteins located at the membrane. These membrane molecules, specialized in binding and internalization of aliments, especially proteins, are exemplified by members of the immunoglobulin superfamily (27). This superfamily is one of the most diverse and abundant protein family. It includes for example adhesion molecules (see also below for adhesion and apoptosis), and cytokine or olfactory receptors. Interestingly, some receptors are related to amino-acid transport proteins (for a recent review, see ref. 28). Finally, what we call a cytokine receptor might be considered as a specialized tool for capture of proteins from the cellular microenvironment. If proteins constitute a limiting resource in the cellular world, like in the macroscopic world, successful capture will condition cellular activity. Would cells be more complex than multicellular animals ? " _____________________ Pierre Sonigo was among the researchers whose work pioneered the sequencing of the Human Immuno Virus (HIV) at the Institut Pasteur in 1985.

The New York Times reports (published 9 December, 2012) "In Girl’s Last Hope, Altered Immune Cells Beat Leukemia" . Last Spring, the article reports, doctors at Children's Hospital of Philidelphia treating Emma Whitehead, (aged 6 at the time) for an advanced case of lymphoblastic lukemia which had not responded to any other treatment resorted to injecting a disabled form of the Human Immuno Virus in a never-before-attempted therapy. In Emma's case, the treatment appears to have been effective and she remains in complete remission at this point. "To perform the treatment, doctors remove millions of the patient’s T-cells — a type of white blood cell — and insert new genes that enable the T-cells to kill cancer cells. The technique employs a disabled form of H.I.V. because it is very good at carrying genetic material into T-cells. The new genes program the T-cells to attack B-cells, a normal part of the immune system that turn malignant in leukemia." .... "The research is still in its early stages, and many questions remain. The researchers are not entirely sure why the treatment works, or why it sometimes fails. One patient had a remission after being treated only twice, and even then the reaction was so delayed that it took the researchers by surprise. For the patients who had no response whatsoever, the team suspects a flawed batch of T-cells. The child who had a temporary remission apparently relapsed because not all of her leukemic cells had the marker that was targeted by the altered T-cells."

"clicky pens" though, is a term or phrase which refers to something : 'retractable-point ink-writing intrustments', no? Whether that is what "clicky pens" "means" is one thing, but once we have agreement about the item(s) to which the terms refer, there is a "rererent" which is identifiable---leaving "meaning" aside for the moment. You're expressing yourself loosely when, by writing ' "God" could mean "clicky pens" ' you seem in fact to intend to say, ' "God" could refer to "clicky pens" ' ... But, if you'd been that precise, you'd have perhaps recognized that, on the contrary, no: under no reasonable set of circumstances could the term "God" refer to "clicky pens". But, if it did, at least then we could proceed to consider what we can say about these identifiable things (i.e. clicky pens) whereas attempting that exercise is made problematic (to say the least) since, unlike the terms "clicky pens," the term "God" does not refer to anything we can identify. My point was that this is a factor which it ought to be seen to "matter" indeed for the exercise you're undertaking--though in its details, I admit that I don't follow it. But, even before I get to that point, I'm left doubting the pertinence of the exercise if, as I have tried to argue, there is in fact no referent for the term "God", neither "clicky pens" or any other indentifiable thing..

Didn't Russell deal with the question as it relates to the significance of the term "God"--that is, a problem of a term which has no referent, and, as such, one which fails to present a meaningful statement--other than when used in this sense, i.e. to point out that the term has no valid referent? For example, "Is the Afkjirftrjvjkvrjgijhirhvrirhcumus necessary or impossible?" "Afkjirftrjvjkvrjgijhirhvrirhcumus," having no referent, fails as a sentence which conveys meaning. Each and everyone can claim to have a notion of "God" but no one can know whether his notion corresponds to anyone else's notion, and there is no non-arbitrary referent or means for comparison or contrast by which to examine the term's vlaidity, is there? What is "God"?---other than a term without a valid referent?, that is. See: B. Russell, An Enquiry Into Meaning and Truth (1940)

Here's a recommendation for a text which anyone in need of a well written, well organized and well-presented introduction to the full range of main issues concerned here will find very helpful, I think. I refer to David L. Hull and Michael Ruse, editors of The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology. Published in October of 2007, it's not unreasonably out of date. Further, the topics allow the reader with only a general interest and no specialist knowledge to find a clear presentation of many if not all of the central issues in contemporary biological sciences—especially those areas which are centers of controversy. While nothing can replace a reading of Kupiec for anyone interested in his work, the Cambridge Companion is, at this writing, the best all-in-one-place introductory presentation that I am aware of and it occurs to me that some readers need such a work to give them an entry to the issues. Here is a link to the « pdf » file for the front-matter, includes introduction and table of contents. Here is the text's Chapter heads and their contributing authors (from the publisher's web-page) : Introduction David L. Hull and Michael Ruse 1. « Adaptation » Tim Lewens (Clare College, Cambridge*) 2. « Population genetics » Roberta L. Millstein and Robert A. Skipper 3. « Units and levels of selection » Elisabeth A. Lloyd 4. « What's wrong with the emergenist statistical interpretation of natural selection and random drift ? » Robert N. Brandon and Grant Ramsey 5. « Gene » Paul E. Griffiths and Karola Stotz 6. « Information in biology » Peter Godfrey-Smith 7. « Reductionism (and antireductionism) in biology » Alexander Rosenberg 8. « Mechanisms and models » Lindley Darden 9. « T eleology » Andre Ariew 10. « Macroevolution, minimalism, and radiation of the animals » Kim Sterelny 11. « Philosophy and phylogenetics: historical and current connections » Maureen Kearney 12. « Human evolution: the three grand challenges of human biology » Francisco J. Ayala 13. « Varieties of evolutionary psychology » David J. Buller 14. « Neurobiology » Valerie Gray Hardcastle 15. « Biology explanations of human sexuality: the genetic basis of sexual orientation » Christopher Horvath 16. « Game theory in evolutionary biology » Zachary Ernst 17. « What is an 'embryo' and how do we know it? » Jane Maienschein 18. « Evolutionary developmental biology » Manfred D. Laubichler 19. « Molecular and systems biology and bioethics » Jason Scott Robert 20. « Ecology » Gregory M. Mikkelson 21. « From ecological diversity to biodiversity » Sohotra Sarkar 22. « Biology and religion » Robert T. Pennock 23. « The moral grammar of narratives in history of biology: the case of Haeckel and Nazi biology » Robert J. Richards. _______________________ From time to time, I'll cite passages from these essays in posts as supporting examples, pro and con.

Readers of this thread should find interesting reading in a special issue of Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, Volume 110, Issue 1 (2012) Special Issue: Chance at the Heart of the Cell Edited by Jean-Jacques Kupiec, Olivier Gandrillon, Delphine Kolesnik and Guillaume Beslon One of the articles, "What Makes Cells Differentiate?" by Andras Paldi, is accessible in its entirety to non-subcribers (pdf format) ; others, with access via an institution can view the full texts of the 19 articles concerned--the titles of which you can consult via the second of the links, above.

In what I mean to be a complimentary remark, not a controversial one, I'm tempted to say that I very much appreciate both that you bothered to pose such a question and also that you posed it with the Postscript you thought to add. For me, both mark a change from what I've become used to seeing in this site. I opened a thread On Ontophylogenesis or "Cellular Darwinism" in which I thought I could present and discuss some of these "aspects which are not being afforded due attention and critical examination." I wonder, have you looked into that thread at all? If not, you may find there, already described, some of the things I have in mind. I've already been admonished for bringing up the topic in a different thread than that which I began. Rather than invite that again I think I have to begin by referring you to the link shown here, above. Before I mentioned "Kupiec" and "ontophylogenesis" in posts of mine, a keyword search on those terms returned zero positive repsonses--and this site is celebrating its tenth anniversary. I think that is a prima facie demonstration of the point.

Thank you for the name and the references. Now that I see it (the second one, HuffPo) I recall that article referred to in another blog-- similar issues, similar controversy.

To Arete, RE your : ..."3) Given I've never, apart from a single outlier, encountered a biologist who doesn't acknowledge these mechanisms" I'm curious about and interested in knowing who you have in mind as this "single outlier". I might find that name interesting. Here are a few other incidental thoughts about this thread, which until now I'd not noticed-- to me, it isn't surprising that a thread such as this should occur. I don't happen to agree--as far as I've read them--with the main tenets here or some of them, but I think that the apparent controversy on this topic ought to tell us something about the questionable character of certain standard views in this subject. But there's not much to indicate that it does tell us that if the annoyance of some critics in the thread is any indication. In his post, N° 81, above, CharonY remarks, "I wonder how often this has to be discussed." I think the answer is that it will be discussed again and again as more and more people come accidentally into acquaintance with the fact that there are a number of aspects of standard theory which deserve an attention and critical examination that they are not getting and, frankly, aren't allowed to get under present circumstances. So, there's no good reason to be surprised if some who have questions and doubts raise them in fora such as this. Again, I don't think the views being presented here by the thread(s)' author are the best or the correct ones to bring against this Modern Synthesis, but that there are objections, that "this has to be discussed (often)," that doesn't surprise me at all and I look forward to the time when that exasperated lament will not seem justified because no one will find it surprising that the doubts and questions persist.

It seems to me that ydoaPs makes a pertinent point. in effect, the nucleotides, having been identified, are now susceptible to being "read" in the sense that strings of DNA/RNA may be compared and with that comparison, one can say whether or not two samples are more or less similar. But your uses of "reading" and of "syntax" in the context of DNA are not clear. What possible sense can syntax have in this context? You don't make that point clear in your argument--as far as I have seen it. Nor is it clear what point or objective your theory targets--but I gather that the underlying objective is to arrive at an as-yet-impossible capacity to foresee, predict, what nucleotide chains should produce what consequences in cells, in tissue, in the organism as a whole. But there is nothing that I've seen in your argument which presents us with the general basic theory of why, once supposedly "unlocked," this elusive syntax of the DNA should provide that predictive capacity. Let's take an analogy for example. We could select six Lego (construction toy) pieces and theorize that, in the make-up of the Lego constructions, there is some sort of underlying syntax which, when understood, makes the constructions reveal a certain sense or meaning and which could allow us to predict what various changes in the order of assembly would produce. These Lego pieces, when placed in the "natural environment" (in this case, e.g. in the presence of playful children) will result in a wide variety of constructive results. We could look at those results and attempt to find in them the syntactical inner meaning, supposing that we were not aware that their assembly by children implied that no such meaning was possible. We'd even be able to recognize, over a long observation, that very similar constructions were found to occur again and again in many different "environments"--that is because many children with the same or similar ages and experiences--social, psychological, etc.--will assemble the pieces in ways which are at times found to be remarkable in their similiarity. What should that suggest to us? Perhaps something about the children assembling the pieces but nothing really about the pieces themselves, their deeper "meaning" or pupose or syntax--because there is none. As with nature's environmental conditions, the children present a random-assembly factor. The pieces fit together only in certain ways, the children always follow that, and their constructions are more or less the random consequences of their particular momentary bent--to assemble something "tall", "short," "wide", "narrow". The upshot is that DNA's nucleotides are produced by the conjuncture of random circumstances which combine with environmental factors which weigh more or less on a certain utility or the lack of it in the chains produced. Those chains which are conducive of cell reproductions are by chance more likely to flourish. But "reading the elements" does not allow us to understand why one chain has some discernable set of influences or related consequences and another chain a different set of these. And, your exposition, so far as I have been able to see, doesn't offer us any explanation of why and how it could and should be otherwise. In other words, DNA is the result of random-generation mechanisms; the chains are relatively infinite in their potential arrangements. Thus, you seem to have the objective of finding the syntactical sense of outcomes which are inherently random. It's as though one took a box of nuts and bolts, all loose and detached, and imagined that because they are the elemental pieces found in various constructions, that there must be some syntactical meaning in the way that they are found to be put together--eventhough, behind their assembly are mechanisms that resemble, in effect, "shaking the box" as seeing how the pieces shake out, arrange themselves, as a reult. I see no basis in theory for such an expectation in nuts-and-bolts, in Lego pieces, or in DNA nucleotides. If there is one, can you present it? Whose work, I wonder, offers the precedents and bases of your views on DNA syntax? Where are the theoretical foundations on which you're building this hypothesis about syntax in the nucleotides?

I tried to keep my perspective and my comment as strictly limited as possible to the posts immediately referenced --and that was for the same reasons that I prefaced my comment with "...I'm no longer keen to leap with both feet back into this morass, I think it's worth noting...." Your question asked for a judgement. And there's nothing per se wrong with that; but I think it helps to recognize that we're dealing with a matter of judgement when posing that question. To answer you as best I can, ideally my idea is probably very near or the same as what I imagine yours to be (based on your comments here) when it comes to "What aspect of "Truth" are you seeking to defend with regard to science?" --" truth" as: a piece of correct information about the phenomena of the physical world as provisionally verified by tested experimental data and shown (or supposed sometimes mistakenly ) validly relevant to the theory concerned. But that's an ideal and an idealistic interpretation. At the same time, I think that if you or if we asked scientists of all sorts that same question, we'd get many of them offering the same or very similar answers--in their minds' view of the question-- but, if we examined in addition not just what they say or claim but what their observable behaviors indicate about "What aspect of "Truth" these many varied people, as scientists, are seeking to defend with regard to science?, " we'd come, I think, to the view that spoken responses indicate one set of answers and their actual science practice indicates another and much larger, "hazier" repsonse as to what they are seeking to do and to defend "in science." Science is done by people living in a culture, by people who are inevitably shaped and conditioned by that culture. That means that any ideal view of science's objective of "objectivity"is one thing and its realization is another, lesser, thing, no matter how wonderful the scientists are in their own or others' judgement--as I see it. You've given us your view of it as you write, here, "...To me, Truth is related to faith, belief in things you can't know with certainty. Trust is more related to..." (& ect.) Unless this disputation is nothing but a matter of semantical diffferences, "truth" in science seems to me to plausibly include those beliefs the scientist or other holds for reasons which are based on scientifically-reasoned chains of argument. Or, as Russell put it, it's not what scientists think that matters but the foundations--reasons for--their thinking it. These are better or worse depending on the reasoning talents of the person or people involved. Some very shoddy "science" and scientific reasoning can be done by those who are by any acceptable standard real scientists. We accept that. In fact, as it seems to me, scientists, as a community, do what so many other "fraternities" commonly are found to do: they typically cut their fellow members the kind of slack which they'd not extend to people outside the fraternity/sorority. That is human and it happens everywhere every day. And this site, as an example of such communitarian inclusion or exclusion is as good an example of that as any other I could cite. Some (or one) of those I've thought to be among this site's most interesting thinker-participants have (has) been formally banned here for reasons which, in my opinion, are no better than or other than their (his or her) inability to bow and courtsey to the approved opinions as set out by their enforcers. That, too, of course, is another heterodox view from the very obvious positions set out here by those in authority. But this thread is inevitably all about authority and when and how it is or isn't properly applied--in this case in science and by scientists. It's thus a philosophical issue as well as a matter of interest and concern for scientists.

While I'm no longer keen to leap with both feet back into this morass, I think it's worth noting that the post you propose here to correct did, after all, mention that, (I qoute): "Science is ; quest for Truth." (my emphasis added) and, "When we come across a Truth, should we promote it or suppress it?" (my emphasis added) in the second citation, it appears to me that "a Truth" is worth noting and distinguishing from an attributed call for the establishment of "the Truth." I don't know whether the capital "T" there is intended or inadvertent but at the very least, there's an indefinite article ("a") preceeding that "Truth" with a capital "T". Perhaps that's worth noting? It strikes me that your corrective comments take little if any account of those aspects in the post to which youre replying.

Thank you for drawing my attention to what I somehow didn't recognize as the reference target of your comment. I have a number of things to post in response to your comments. The delay in doing that, among other things, is in deciding whether to preent them in a more or a less devoloped form. I'm also thinking of working on an elaborate poll of readers here on these and related issues--a poll which, unlike the thing already attached, should be of some general interest for others rather than something which was of use and interest mainly in my decisions on whether and how much I should post on this topic. But, due to some other pressing demands on time right now, all that willl have to come later.

« Single-moleculte imaging of DNA pairing by RecA reveals a three-dimensional homology search » (Journal Nature, 482, 423-427 (16 February 2012) Anthony L. Forget and Stephen C. Kowalcyzkowski citation : http://www.nature.co...nature10782.ris doi:10.1038/nature10782 « The mechanism by which the RecA family of DNA strand exchange proteins (which include T4 UvsX, archaeal RadA and eukaryotic Rad51) locate DNA sequence identity is unknown. Ensemble studies have constrained possible mechanisms by establishing that ATP hydrolysis is not needed3, 4 and 1D sliding is not operative5. Consequently, the manner by which the RecA nucleoprotein filament promotes the efficient, rapid and accurate search for homology has remained undefined for decades6. Single-molecule methods have the potential to provide new insight into this long-standing question. In fact, magnetic tweezer experiments showed that the endpoint of homologous pairing can be detected as a change in the length of a single dsDNA target molecule7, 8. However, the mechanism by which homology was found and DNA pairing occurred was not shown. Therefore, we sought to directly observe the manner by which RecA nucleoprotein filaments locate their homologous target in dsDNA. ... » … … « ...Next, we attempted to detect homologous pairing in real time using single-molecule TIRFM. Preformed RecA nucleoprotein filaments were introduced into a flowcell to which λ DNA molecules were tethered, buffer flow was stopped, and the reaction was monitored in real time (Fig. 1B, b). Although the dsDNA was readily visible, we failed to observe any interaction between the fluorescent nucleoprotein filaments and extended λ DNA, even for reaction periods longer than 1 h. However, we noticed that in addition to the desired doubly tethered extended λ DNA molecules, some DNA molecules were attached only by one end (Fig. 1B, c). When flow was stopped to score pairing with the doubly tethered λ DNA molecules, these singly tethered molecules relaxed to a randomly coiled state. Unexpectedly, when these unconstrained DNA molecules were subsequently re-extended by buffer flow, 80% (n = 20) revealed a stable pairing product (Fig. 1B, c). This finding suggested that either a free DNA end or a random coiled DNA was needed for pairing. In the same field of view, there were also λ DNA molecules that had both ends attached, but at a relatively close end-to-end distance (Fig. 1B, d). When the flow was stopped, we observed that these molecules also participated in homologous pairing during the time that flow was off, demonstrating that a free DNA end was not required. These unanticipated results revealed that DNA pairing did not occur on DNA that was extended to near its entropic elastic limit, and suggested that the DNA homology search required the 3D states that are accessible in randomly coiled DNA. Collectively, they suggested that a coiled conformation of the target dsDNA is crucial. ...» … « To understand the nature of the complex that limits the rate of DNA pairing, we varied the length of RecA nucleoprotein filaments. Shown in Fig. 3c is a comparison of the time courses for 162-, 430- and 1,762-nucleotide nucleoprotein filaments. Increasing the ssDNA length approximately fourfold, from 430 to 1,762 nucleotides, increased the observed rate of pairing approximately 3.8-fold. However, when the length of the ssDNA was decreased to 162 nucleotides, we did not observe any stably bound homologously paired products after incubations for 10 min at the closest bead-to-bead distance possible (2 µm), despite this substrate being active in ensemble DNA pairing reactions (Supplementary Fig. 2). We conclude that the length of the RecA nucleoprotein filament is a crucial factor in the rate-limiting step of homologous pairing. ...» … « Our results clearly establish that both the 3D conformation of dsDNA and the length of the nucleoprotein filament are important determinants of the rate for DNA homologous pairing. These findings lead us to propose a model termed 'intersegmental contact sampling' to describe the search for homology by a RecA nucleoprotein filament (Fig. 4d). One of the key features of the model is that the RecA nucleoprotein filament has a polyvalent interaction surface that is capable of binding simultaneously and non-specifically, but weakly, with non-contiguous segments of dsDNA. The second related feature of this model is that 3D conformational entropy of the dsDNA greatly enhances the probability that DNA sequence homology will be found through iterated homology sampling, using multiple weak contacts, by this polyvalent filament. This model is compatible both with our key experimental findings, which we expect would apply to the search in the presence of ATP as well, and with the involvement of heterologously bound intermediates that have been inferred from biochemical studies15, 16. Our data show that dsDNA extended to near contour length fails to produce homologously paired products. This observation provides an explanation for the observation that the formation of stable DNA pairing products in single-molecule studies using magnetic tweezers required negative plectonemic supercoils in the DNA target 7, 8. By contrast, when a ssDNA–RecA filament was extended to near its contour length, homologous pairing with fully homologous coiled dsDNA occurred which is compatible with our finding that the coiled structure of dsDNA is essential to the homology search. Here we established that as the end-to-end distance of the dsDNA was decreased, allowing it to assume a more random coil-like 3D conformation, the rate of DNA pairing increased because the local DNA concentration increases, and the likelihood that DNA segments will be in close proximity also greatly increases. The increased local DNA concentration results in a greater statistical probability that a single nucleoprotein filament can simultaneously interact with and sample multiple regions of the same DNA molecule. This, in turn, is manifest as a kinetically more efficient homology sampling process. In further support of the intersegmental contact sampling model, when the length of the ssDNA in the nucleoprotein filament is increased, the observed rate of pairing, as well as the number of nucleoprotein filaments with multiple, transient, heterologous intersegmental interactions is increased. This shows that longer nucleoprotein filaments can simultaneously and independently sample more segments of the target dsDNA than shorter nucleoprotein filaments. » … «Seminal work on the DNA target selection by transcriptional regulatory proteins identified sliding, hopping and intersegmental transfer as potentially facilitating mechanisms 17, 18. Here we have established intersegmental transfer as the operative pathway used by RecA to find DNA sequence homology; this behaviour is distinct from the sliding and hopping used to enhance the rate of target location by most regulatory proteins, which are typically univalent or bivalent with regard to site binding 18. Our approach now provides a framework for future studies on the previously mysterious homology search by recombination proteins. It is applicable to studies of more complex systems such as eukaryotic Rad51, as it can provide insight into the function of the many accessory proteins that enhance DNA pairing9. Finally, the imaging strategy and flow-free cell design can easily be adapted to visualize target location and mechanism of processes as diverse as DNA replication and repair, RNA interference, transcription and protein translation, in which the 3D conformations of nucleic acids are undoubtedly important. » My comment: These assumptions and experimental findings square nicely with the work done and described (or cited) previously by Kupiec and Sonigo (2000, esp. Ch. 4, « L'indentification cellulaire », pp. 104-121,) where, as do the authors in the text cited here above (at their footnote Ref. 18) , Kupiec & Sonigo also cite the work of O.G. Berg ( in their case, Kupiec & Sonigo cite Berg and P.H. Von Hippel, « Diffusion-controlled macromolecular interactions », (1985) ) and discuss the importance of the model of coiled DNA as it relates to positionally random effects and proximity as stochastic factors in cell processes. (There are some hyperlink formatting problems I haven't been able to correct in this text. Sorry. )

Well, in order to avoid another misunderstanding, allow me to ask you--- You have directly cited this, from me, (which I'll refer to below as "Citation P / "A" ") and, if I"m not mistaken, you answered that with this (which I'll refer to below as "Citation S / "1" "), which I took to be your own opinion, not a "devil's advocate" response: So, I have two questions, or perhaps even three, Do the words I cited by you above ( "Citation S / "1" "), ) represent your own views? If not, then not only did I fail to recognize that, I still fail to recognize how I ought to have known better. Could you explain how the above citation is fairly to be understood, if it is the case, as other than your own views? If it does represent your view, then I ask, where do I misrepresent you in my stating that, as it seemed to me, it is your contention that, as I wrote (and which I'll reference as "Citation P / "B" ") : "These people (Obama's disaffected supporters), as Swansont himself tells us, are relegated to the "fringe", they make up the new "extreme" ? Which of my assertions (in Citation P / "A") do you mean when, in direct referenc to it, you assert that it, " ...is meaningless, since it applies to every president..." ( I'll break them down for examination purposes) "Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum." ( "Cite P / "C") "That didn't and doesn't mean that in the world, suddenly every person or group holding views to the left of Obama's simply disappeared." ( Cite P / "D" ) "It means what I thought was obvious: such people now have no one in the political structure, the formal American political, and esp. electoral, system, simply doesn't extend to them." (Cite P / "E" ) "They lie beyond, outside the limits of what is now represented and representable or, more precisely, what's happened is that their lying beyond it has now been made manifest whereas previously, any astute observer might have already recognized what this recent electoral outcome, for me, confirms as true ... " ( Cite P / "F" ) " ... it (Note: i.e. a "pre-Obama political order") once did "represent" them (Note: i. e. those to Obama's Left). My argument is that the re-election of Obama sounds the mourning bell for such people, until things change and change rather profoundly." (Cite P / "G" ) As I read it, you contend that each of these, "C" through "G," are "meaningless since it (i.e. they) apply to every president." And I took that to be your position, not one made for the sake of argument alone. If it's your view that some or all of "C" through "G" are true, because they "apply to every president" --every president's relationship to a set of the electorate, that is-- but, at the same time, that some or all of "C" through "G" are by the same token, meaningless (for the purposes of our discussion here?) then I haven't understood how is it that these same elements are not quite correctly just another way of stating that, "These people (Obama's disaffected supporters), ... are relegated to the "fringe", they make up the new "extreme"--" (Cite P / "H") If "H" isn't the same thing, in effect, as my claims in "C" through "G" above, and if you're granting those claims as, (I quote) "To the extent that this can be considered true it is meaningless, since it applies to every president", then did you actually mean that these things ("C" through "G") , in your view, are false, but, even if they were true, they'd still be "meaningless" because, (someone, you?) asserts or might assert, that they could arguably apply to every president ('s administration)? Am I to understand that when you wrote, "To the extent that this can be considered true..." you didn't actually mean, in effect "To the extent that I can consider this to be true..." (where "I" refers to you) ? And am I to understand that I should have been aware that you meant not yourself but some other hypothetical participant? Do I have that right? Please clarify this for me. Where and how should I have construed things differently and, on what basis should I have been able to do that, given your comments as cited above, because, from the record here, I certainly don't see that yet. ----------- 2nd Edit to add : Please note: In order to help me better understand you in further comments, would you please, when paraphrasing my comments, indicate clearly whether in citing them and commenting, the extent to which the paraphrase or the commentary you post in reference to the pararphrase represents a view other than your own? Because it appears that I am not ably to reliably distinguish the one from the other. Good. Thank you. At least I can read and interpret something correctly. There is this aspect, though, I think. In using the metaphor, (or even speaking in plain unmetaphorical terms) I think these circumstances are not so much that "on the left side of the vehicle" there is necessarily an occupant/& sometime-driver properly viewed as, in actual fact, "Leftist", though he (or she) may be "sitting on that side of the car". Our trouble is, at least in part, that the two people in the car aren't really good, valid representatives of, on one hand, "a Left politics" and, on the other, "a Right" politics. Instead, at any one given time-- and in our times, it's nearly always the case of the "Left-side" occupant--one of the two is more properly seen as a pseudotype of his wing of the political spectrum and it is that falsity which makes for the "erratic ride", plunging headlong toward a concrete wall, because, if it really were a genuine model of the opposition "Left," shouldn't we and couldn't we, in that case, assume and expect that at some point, there'd be a real correction in course (if only temporary) and not just a phoney one? We might reflect: when was the last time that a change in the White House occupant's party after an election produced an actual and meaningful (measurable?) "change in course"? (The following is very much off-the-cuff stuff, not a carefully-considered or documented set of views) Truman to Eisenhower? a modest but genuine effect, I think. Eisenhower to JF Kennedy? for me, no real appreciable change of political course. In fact, I see Lyndon Johnson as departing more from JF Kennedy's legacy than Kennedy departed from Eisenhower's. Lyndon Johnson to Nixon? no genuine and important change in national course, in my opinion (with, of course, the exception that Nixon broke new ground in turning the apparatus of the federal government into a personal tool for his own devious ends; Johnson did a bit of that, but, as I see it, Nixon blazed new paths in that sense.) Ford to Carter? No lasting change that we can point to, in my view; and much, much lost and wasted time and opportunity. Carter to Reagan? Yes, a significant change, but not so much of direction as of faster acceleration of he given situation. Reagan immensely increased things: debt, spending, an attack on organized labor, etc. But Carter hadn't done much of anything to protect and preserve what he inherited in coming into office. Reagan to G. H. W. Bush? I don't think Bush (the elder) consulted crystal-ball-gazing psychics as Reagan did. Other than that, no significant changes of national political course. Bush to Clinton? Yes, the political complexion of the nation altered in the following way--- Clinton was in fact, as I see it, correctly seen (as indeed some described him only partly in jest) as the "first Black president of the U.S. and in fact, compared to Obama, who couldn't be more "White" even if his skin was caucasian, Clinton did seem to actually intend to do things directly for the benefit of Black Americans in particular. But Clinton also represented more importantly, the first major break in our time from a clear political distinction between Democrat and Republican. In more ways than not, Clinton was the president that served Right-wing power interests generously and in return received their prentended scathing contempt--which, outside the actual party hierarchy, was pure faked bluster and pantomine stuff. The real right-wing corporate power interests in fact very much liked Clinton for what he actually did, if not for what he tried to seem to stand for in symbolism and ritual, where it didn't much count in hard cash and physical goods. Clinton to George W. Bush? Again, an acceleration increase in speed of the already-existing tendencies. More imperialism, more war, more ideological silliness and social division and confusion. Bush to Obama? Yes. Some changes in actual governing approach. Bush actually had serious "principles"--tjhough they were extreme right-wing and deplorable, at least they were held as principles. Obama, a pure robotic technocrat has only one principle: quantitatively measured "efficiency" and mind-numbing conventionality of thought. ------------------------------------------------------------- More Postscript obiter dicta: Since this is a science forum, allow me to take a moment and post some of the elements which, in a seat-of-the-pants fashion, I'd regard as good disconfirming indications--stuff that would require me to scrap or seriously revise the views I've (well, tried to) maintain consistently here from the opening post. So, what would some disconfirming things be? When Obama takes a startlingly different course, breaks with his first-term habits --wearisome and feckless compromise (or, as I'd describe it, prostrating abject surrender toward the so-called opposition party, the Republicans) --- each time we see such instances, if you do a double-take, or shake yourself and say, "Huh?! What did I just see/hear?, or you fall out of your chair because this plodding and predictable president does something--I mean really does something, not just spouting his usual empty rhetorical drivel-- then that is an instance which means serious empirical trouble for my case. Instead, when you see an endless litany of excuse-making, of yielding up again and again to the Republican demands or their expectations, for whatever reason this is done--because I do not expect honest, forthright admissions from Obama that "X, Y, or Z" isn't good enough---oh, wait, he does that, but nothing changes and it makes no real difference in his practice--then we have another instance of the president acting "true-to-form" and in accord with my argued view of who and what he is in fact--symbol and empty talk, no substance. There you are, for your reference.

I suscribe wholeheartedly to just about everything you've said here. And, maybe the one point on which I have a reservation is only due to a misinterpretation of your point --that is, where you say, "the very idea of a Left and a Right is invalid..." If, by that you mean, it has become invalid, emptied of meaning, rendered useless except as a convenient tool for duping the credulous into believing that a an electoral system worthy of the name still exists--if that's what you mean when you say "a Left and a Right is invalid", then on every point, I agree with your assessment. It's a good reply and offers a number of very useful points of departure for continuing this discussion. For example, based on all you describe, it should be clear that we don't have anything even remotely resembling a working democratic system. By the way, France held a presidential election last April/May, and things are no better on these points in France than in the U.S. In fact, it's striking how much the election of François Hollande and the subsequent disappointment and disillusionment among both voters and non-voters with Hollande's failures to stick to the things he's promised to try to do resembles the sad story of Barack Obama's betrayal of his former supporters. Hollande's approval rating has set new records for the depth and the speed of its descent. I see it as a virtual re-play of the experiences concerning Obama and his betrayal of those now on Obama's "Left"--and on his Left, because Obama not because they "moved" but because, after being elected the first time, Obama at last revealed (openly) who and what he really is and was all along. In his post (see N° 20, above) iNow listed some of the important things that need to be done in the way of reforms to make the nation politically better. At this point, I want to come back to those to point out what our dilemma indicates. If the U.S. had a working democratic system worthy of the name, not only could everything on that list be accomplished, it could be accomplished--or at least well begun--both quickly and easily. If that laundry list of needed reforms leaves me and many others with no idea of how to actually accomplish those things, that is simply because there is no such democratic system available. So, the preliminay work has to be done and that requires a recognition of the things that you have spelled out in your reply here. Instead of a democratic system, we have the circumstances you've listed. And they're the negation, the antithesis of, a democratic system. On the other hand, they're just what a closed oligarchy of plutocrats would want as a system for the effective and perpetual thwarting of democratic reforms. Where is Obama in all that? He's in the role of a person who is, to a degree which is truly fascinating as a laboratory case, incapable of recognizing his own capture by the system. My view is that, for all his (much overrated) supposed intellect, this man has nothing like the insight into himself that he probably imagines that he has. He has no "purchase" on himself as an objective observer, or even as an astute subjective observer of himself. He lives and works in a hermetically-sealed bubble, surrounded by people who he picked and who keep their positions by treating him with slavish deference. That's not unique to his presidency but you certainly couldn't have faulted those who'd hoped, before his first term, that he'd run things differently as being complete and utter naïve fools. Now, however, with the experiences of his first term, to continue to believe in him does indicate something of a hopeless naïveté, it seems to me. As a thorough-going centrist-right-winger, the very next-best if not the best thing that Neo-cons could hope for in his office, Obama, believing he's actually a man of the people is all the more a ruinous mischief-maker. And that is why this, from overtone, at post N° 28, simply misses the point: (RE: "[ "He's not on our side" ["He" being Barack Obama] ) Sheer nonsense. No one in this thread has advocated (either before election, or for next time, any voting support of Romney or anyone else like him). No one, having found Obama a hopeless and lost cause as a candidate, was, on that account, obliged to then vote for Romney. But that is exactly what Overtone's post reasons--- "Anyone who thinks that [ i.e. the fact that "He's not on our side" ["He" being Barack Obama] is a good reason to vote for somebody like Romney is invited to review the record of W's presidency,... --is claiming to be the case. Again, no one is arguing that. But, once again, "Overtone" 's post makes my point for me: there is now nowhere for such voters to go. And that is why I referred previously to "a now non-existent species of citizen-voter". Those are the once-able voters now made "ghosts," disaffected from a political system that no longer offers them any place on the national level (or, for that matter, as I may argue later, on the state or local level either since, with extremely few exceptions, the strangle-hold that organized money has achieved on the national political/electoral level is even more solid and complete at the state and local level). These people (Obama's disaffected supporters), as Swansont himself tells us, are relegated to the "fringe", they make up the new "extreme"--and so, they are now officially homeless, orphaned in the political system, not because they "moved" but because Obama did -- even if that means that he really only made his true aspects apparent where before he'd taken care to present himself as a determined defender of the causes of the Left. Once in office, Obama showed that he is anything but that. So in the sense that his real aspect is revealed to us, that is effectively a "movement" on the political spectrum--making him the place-holder, ratified by re-election, of what constitutes the practical limits of the "Left" 's highest office-holder --as pathetic as that is. And the reason that this is the case is, indeed, precisely because, as swansont's argument puts it, these now-officially disaffected voters have become, de facto, by Obama's re-election, the new and apparently accepted idea of the "fringe", the "extremists" which, according to swansont, are, practically by definition, always and necessarily left out of account by any sitting president. That overlooks the key factor here: these same disaffected Leftists used to have at least an arguably real place in the political "mainstream". If, today, they do not, that's a measure of the extent to which Obama has made himself pliably shiftable ever-Rightward, for crying out loud!!

No, it was misspelled due to a my faulty recollection of it. Since I had it in mind incorrectly, I used that misspelling repeatedly and without noticing it or checking. Are you angry with me? I made a mistake in my recalling the spelling. I apologize for that mistake, which I regret it and I have corrected the error. Likewise, my spelling of "vertiginous" was misspelled as "vetiginous". I also hadn't noticed that error and it is now corrected with a few synonyms for definition. ---------------------------------- this next, the remainder here below, I must return to later, after an interruption If either you or iNow understood me to have argued above that claiming " that there were no citizen-voters to the left of the president" then I accept that I did not make myself clear. What I mean and meant is that these supposed voters to the left of Obama--who, by the way, do these disaffected voters who, being to his left, reject Obama as their proper choice, who do they vote for?-- are in the present circumstances orphaned; they have no so, to explain briefly, my keyboard typing is so loud that it disturbed others in the vicinity and I had to interrupt the post above; in addition, I don't have time to conveniently finish it now. instead, I'll just offer for the interim that, if there have been some failures in clarity on my part, I accept them and will try to correct them. I also grant that in the course of any discussion of differing opinion, it's going to be common for readers to misunderstand at first pass some of what they read and for writers to express themselves in terms which are inevitably not clear in the same sense to every conceivable reader. What I dispute, though, is that, whatever my meaning may have seemed to Swansont to have been, it is not and it never was my point or purpose to contend some of the absurdities that he is attributing to me--- namely, that Obama's own failures as a "liberal"--whatever that means--imply somehow that there aren't in actual fact various people and groups politically to the left of Obama who have been abandoned, betrayed by him, and his policy positions, or that these people and groups magically disappeared soon before, during or after his re-election. Such an interpretation strikes me as too absurd to even conveive. But, then, one can read some perposterous stuff on the internet. In the meantime, though, think about what such a ridiculous assertion as theirs implies: had I thought that " there were no citizen-voters to the left of the president" then there'd be no basis on which to fault Obama, as I do, for being, in effect, as Isee it, the Neo-Con's and organized wealth's favorite guy to have in office, doing their bidding, even as they figuratively beat up on him in the goofy upside-down world of mass-media. As for, "you changed that to the voters to the left are now without a voice in their representation, the meaning changes, and that was what I was responding to." I "changed" nothing--either in meaning or in text. when you write, swansont, that "And I stand by that: "if you think that electing Obama allows him to ignore the fringe that has a more extremist view, that's true of every president, and so it's unsurprising. But I then argued that it's not actually true," you're either demonstrating my point: that the upshot of the re-election means that people now see things as you portray them--everyone who critcized Obama from his left are now, according to this warped view, a "fringe" group, people whose views are--because they're not in line with Obama's now "standard position", the "extremist view". That is what this election has given us--a new and changed view of who and what constitute this "fringe..., a "more extremist view." or, otherwise, you're using a very common deabte tactic which consists of asserting, despite my clarifications, that I'm insisting on a position which it happens is both absurd and conveniently so for your view of things. Sorry, but that won't wash. The pertinent point is not what you'd like it to be--that every president ignores "the fringe". The point is about who constitutes that and how and why. more on this another day.

Please examine and compare the responses (cited below) to my view that: In one response, iNow objects (in post N° 6) : In another, swansont objects by arguing (in post N° 22) that, You ought to notice several things in examining these two replies to the same comment and those things ought to be revelatory and supportive of the very case that I am arguing here. First, notice how these two responses take a diametrically opposed view of the « problem » with my view of things. For iNow, it is simply too obvious that Obama, having shown himself in various ways to be arguably « actually a bit to the right of where Ronald Reagan would be were he alive...today » (a view with which, in fact, I agree). Next, notice that iNow needs some way to rescue a disturbed consistency in world-view and facts. As I read his reply, his tone and terms indicate that the case I argue clashes with the views he takes to be correct, to be « given » as true in interpreting the political situation concerning Obama's place and rôle in the political spectrum. In other words the views I'm presenting are deemed cognatively dissonant. If I'm right in describing him as startled by the view I'm arguing here, it's important because it seems to me that there should be many, many others who react and who reason similarly. And, if so, we should bear in mind that a common response to cognitive dissonance is to seek to some means to restore the disturbed balance one had, a balance or coherence in an assumed consistency between one's world-view and actual observable facts or their proposed meaning and correct interpretation as known to be claimed by others. As I see it, he does that by first denying that Obama can be in fact the embodiment of the Left-ward extreme of the present political spectrum—this is because, apparently, iNow regards that as being, by definition, impossible: no one who is arguably to the right of Ronald Reagan in some political respects can possibly also be thought to constitute the Left-ward end-point on the political spectrum. Now, in post N° 22, swansont presents the « problem » with my argued view as the diametrical opposite of that of iNow's reply. For swansont, if it's true that « Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-worldn political spectrum, » this is merely a truism, something to be seen as a banal fact, as something meaningless even if true « since it applies to every president. » Though he approaches the issue from the opposite angle, swansont's reply seeks to accomplish the same thing as that of iNow—it seeks a ground to reject what comes as incongruent. Swansont does this by redefining « the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum » as being, simply, (and, again, like iNow's attitude, by definition) wherever and whatever the current incumbent presents us as the policy positions of his party or administration as standard representation of that party-- in this instance a so-called « Left » or « liberal » position according to the now-conventionally-accepted view of things. That is, swansont routinizes « normalization » of political ideological drift, taking whatever happens to be the electoral outcome as also demonstrating the definition of the limits of the political spectrum. Again, if I'm correct in my description, then it seems to me that there should also be many, many others who react and who reason similarly. They cannot, however, both be true, it seems to me. While both try to reach the same objective—restoring a cognitive balance—these two approaches are not factually reconcilable. And that, too, I think is something you ought to have noticed and found significant about them. In the vertiginous (corrected spl. thank you, Swansont / "dizzying", related to "vertigo" ) world of political identity, it is possible for two like-minded observers to find an explanatory and exculpatory rescue in irreconcilable views of the facts. That, too, should tell us something significant about these times. Which is the case? Is Obama, as iNow sees it, a politician who, being in certain ways akin to or « a bit to the right of » Ronald Reagan, therefore simply disqualified on that account from also embodying the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum? Or is Obama, as swansont sees it, to be understood as simply the current and de facto embodiment of that limit, a fact which is both true by definition and, thus, « meaningless » in character? And what should we take as indicated by these two opposite repsonses to the nature of the problem with my argument? For me, the consequences of the latest presidential election are not reducible to rearrangements of the normative definitions of liberal and conservative, not things which can be dispensed with and dismissed simply by a fresh and convenient redefinition of what it means to be liberal or conservative; nor can the consequences be waved away by denying that a putative liberal, so similar to Ronald Reagan in some respects, can ever come to hold the place of a new and different Left-ward limit as opposed to what had theretofore been true. For me, it can happen that reality and its factual content can present us with new and rightly distrubing conditions in our political situation. When this happens, I think that observers are obliged to revise their assumptions about what they'd reasoned rather than revise their definitions of words or, worse, revise what they accept as « reality », dispensing with one now-inconvenient reality and replacing it with a newly convenient one. That approach, though, is not how I see present-day American society to operate. Everything about our times encourages not the readjustment of our perhaps erroneous assumpions, but, rather, a readjustment of accepted reality to conform with our assumptions---this is especially the case in matters essential to meaning-giving rituals and myths. The electoral process we have is intended to supply essential meaning and psychic confort and to operate in these ways on a society-wide level. Rather than revise or question the grounds of our confidence in the coherence and validity our myths and rituals, we're more likely to seek refuge in a revision of the meanings of important terms in our language and, in that way, save ourselves from having to face what would otherwise become apparent: a glaring discrepancy in the once-valid meanings of those important terms—and their practical import in our daily political and social lives—and the now-apparent meanings which cannot be reconciled with the former ones. By the way, earlier today I listened to a radio interview of 33 minutes and 54 seconds on french radio's France Culture of Garry Kasparov, one of Russia's world-class chess champions of the latter 20th century and who has a new book just published in French, Poutine échec et mat (Paris, L'Herne, 2012 / that is, Putin Check and Mate). Unlike in the United States, very few people in Russia are under the illusion that their nation holds free and fair national presidential elections—or that the elections' outcomes are by any stretch of the imagination a translation of the real popular will of the majority of the populace. Kasparov, being one of the very few who has been able (so far) to get away with open criticism of Vladimir Putin, offers an interesting point of view for American observers to consider. Because Kasparov answers his interviewer in English, you can listen to his remarks—even if the questions posed are in French. In the interview, near the very end, the program host asks how Kasparov views the just-announced re-election of Barack Obama. (Kasparov begins his reply at 31mins:27secs on the digital counter. The question posed is, « ...Barack Obama, reputed pragmatist, has sought to conciliate U.S. relations with Putin rather than present a frontal opposition to him; how do you view the re-election of Barack Obama?» ) ---------------------------------------------------------- other observations since the election, for example: « ...And Representative John Boehner, the speaker of the House, wasted no time in declaring that his party remains as intransigent as ever, utterly opposed to any rise in tax rates even as it whines about the size of the deficit. « So President Obama has to make a decision, almost immediately, about how to deal with continuing Republican obstruction. How far should he go in accommodating the G.O.P.'s demands? « My answer is, not far at all. Mr. Obama should hang tough, declaring himself willing, if necessary, to hold his ground even at the cost of letting his opponents inflict damage on a still-shaky economy. And this is definitely no time to negotiate a "grand bargain" on the budget that snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. ...» – Paul Krugman, (column: « Let's Not Make a Deal », 8 Nov. 2012) ----------------------------------- « ' I'm not wedded to every detail of my plan,' Mr. Obama said Friday. » – New York Times, photo cut-line, (page 1 of the website version.)

Of course! Look, "we're on the same side here"----I'm speaking loosely, okay? We may not agree on many things, greater or lesser in importance, but, all those things you list are, of course, the "things that need to be done". But, when I write, "Very frankly, I don't have any clear and readily applicable answer to the question of how we fix things" it doesn't mean that I haven't thought of the usefulness of those points. It means that I can't at present see any practical means to effect any of them. It's much more a matter of how these goals are to be realised, if at all, than of what to do. A lot of smart people, and for decades (make that "centuries"), have pointed out what's wrong with the system. Even Barack Obama knows that these are the things that need to be done as reforms. The question is "How?" and that is the question for which I am short of any ready answer. Barack Obama not only doesn't have the answer either--in fairness, no one I know of has that answer so far--he doesn't have it-- or even getting to working toward it on his agenda. Obama is a thoroghly conventional guy. Not only is he not a genius, by my measures, he's an idiot. But in the U.S. an idiot can not only become president, it's the general case. His "smarts" are the most routine and ordinary kind. He's robotic, and robots do tedious routine chores with great efficiency --in fact, "efficiency" is another term that describes Obama. What he isn't is much and many of the things that we need: genuine--he's a fake, a poser, a phoney; feeling---in his view, feelings are things to abhor and defend against in his line of work. That may be widely believed and accepted in the circles in which he moves but I see that as one of the most important failings about contemporary society. imaginative--for every issue and matter, there is some stale and hand-book referenced response, and he refers to it because that is what someone who beat every well-worn path on the way to power and influence (as he did) does--he does the conventional thing, the unimaginative thing. Even something as simple as not flagrantly exposing his hand to his so-called party opponents, the Republicans, seems to be outside the boundaries of this guy's imagination. But, when it comes to those in his ostensible camp, the once-living "Left", he's shown himself capable of leeping his cards concealed from them. RE: "Find ways to get the populace more active and engaged at all levels, and not just when there happens to be a presidential election." That, of course, is the linch-pin problem. Everything hangs on this obstacle. Our political, educational and many other social arrangements make that goal look impossibly beyond our reach. But we so need to tackle this as a key matter. How? Look at our educational system: balkanized into thousands of "independent," locally-run school districts. [NOTE: edited to add: By the way, I live in France and I've lived here long enough to have recognized that a uniform national educational system--one in which, as in France, all the students are doing pretty much the same things at the same time--that, too, is not necessarily the cure-all answer to the problems.) But, to go back to the U.S. circumstances, To gain ground, we'd need enlightenment in the overwhelming majority of those in order to give young people even a fighting chance to gain the insights they need to grasp the most important facts in society, in politics, even in science. Look: for example: the U.S. are the most religously-fervent of modern western industrial nations; no other is so ignorantly opposed to the basics of Darwin's thougth and work. As far as the vast majority of Americans--young, old, educated or not--are concerned, Charles Darwin might as well have never lived, never boarded the Beagle, never studied nature and never wrote his immense opus. How can that scandal be?!---in 2012!! It's 1859--tell me, is it time then that you read Darwin's Origin of Species? How about 1889? Do you read it then? Or 1959? Would you, by, say, 1959, have deemed it wise and necessary to have read that and, by the way, the even-less-read Descent of Man? Okay, it's 1979. Is it time now to read Darwin? How about 2009? At what point do living Americans decide, "It's time that I read Darwin--not just take second-hand versions of his thought to be sufficient. Time I read both Origin and Descent." ? That time remains, for the vast majority of the population of this highly technological nation somewhere in the undefined and apparently distant future, if it lies there at all for many of them. Our schools and our colleges and universities are routinely failing to educate, and, more, they're failing to instill sufficiently effective reasoning-skills --to the extent that this can be taught through example and practice. They're turning out graduates who've read little and not practiced enough in critical thinking to be able to acquit themselves ably in the face of a reasoning problem. In too many cases, their teachers, professors, can't do this either. The question isn't just "What do we do about these things?", or, knowing "What?", "How do we accomplish those objectives?" it's also, just as importantly, "Are we going to accept these as among our current problems and failings or are we going instead to prefer to take the easier route that denying them offers?" RE: "on another note..." from the Opening post, above, "While I see (as someone who is very much to the Left of him) important negatives in the re-election of Obama, my experience in this site leads me to doubt the usefulness of my first spending much time and trouble to write up in detail those negatives before sounding out what the reception to that effort would be." That initial concern, it is true, seems now to have "gone by the boards." "The poll is odd to me." Fair enough. Most have seen fit to skip it.

I left it uncommented previously but I did read and appreciate your comment, "Personally I would be much more interested in discussing ways to correct our two-party reliance, and practical ways to approach voters with a better way to elect our top officials." That is the eminently reasonable and responsible person's view of it. How could I deny that? It's of course much easier to point out what's wrong than it is to suggest really good and practical courses for correcting what is wrong. Very frankly, I don't have any clear and readily applicable answer to the question of how we fix things. If pressed, I have to admit that I am quite pessimistic about the prospects for reform. Reform efforts are usually taken advantage of by the power structure's most influential to proceed with advancing their controls even futher. The problems go much further than the defects you point out. There are these, as well: a proportional voting system, grafted onto the Electoral College, inherently and deliberately designed to be undemocratic in character and operation, would leave untouched the undemocratic character of the E.C. Then, the bi-cameral legislature: two senators per state, regardless of state population, is, again, inherently undemocratic and means that the popular will is easily and routinely thrwarted or, more precisely, kept where it's intended--in the control of organized money. But the harms of an inherently undemocratic Senate don't end there. The Senate has particular purviews--it passes on presidential appointments--including Supreme Court nominations; it handles treaty ratification, or refusal; it can--and it does--perpetuate an archaic filibuster system which means that the undemocratic representation it starts with is made even more the creature of a minority's whims, to the point that today any sufficient minority of 2/5s + 1( 3/5s of the members being required for cloture of a filibuster) can bring the chamber's work on that matter to a halt. As the wikipedia page notes, " In current practice, the threat of filibuster is more important than its use; almost any motion that does not have the support of three-fifths of the Senate effectively fails. This means that 41 senators, which could represent as little as 12.3% of the U.S. population, can make a filibuster happen." Then, in one after another aspect, in counties, in states, appointive and elective offfices are subject to myriad rules and operations which, again, are inherently undemocratic and are all-important in ensuring that wherever and whenever it counts, a genuinely democratic process is rendered impossible or impossibly difficult. And, in most of these instances, the fact has been in place since the foundation of the Republic. Your observation is quite right: to paraphrase, "How can people working together change things to bring a real democratic order into being?" is a key, if not, indeed, the key, question. But, another and related one is as dreadful to comtemplate: Do Americans really want a genuinely democratic system? And, if they do, do they want it enough to both face unpleasant facts about themselves and enough to fight and overcome the now formidable forces which are deployed and highly organized to prevent just such a system from ever coming into being? I thought that some garden-variety common-sense interpretation would apply to my terms and claims. Of course, when I said there is now nothing to the Left of Obama, that means, not that there aren't here and there, individuals and groups who take positions to the left of B.O. but, that these individuals and groups are now, just as they have been, political orphans, and it seems to me --this is my argument's point, and we can test it with reference to what takes place from here on, can't we?--they are destined to remain political orphans if I am correct because the significance of Obama's re-election means just that: that there is no organized opposition force with which he must reckon. I could, and so I shall, object that your counter-point amounts in effect to a corresponding a "All true Scotsman" fallacy. If we wish, we could set real-world definitional conditions on "significant opposition" so that, as I am confident, there is really no need at all to take any such refuge in the "No true Scotsman" fallacy. Let us define what significant opposition should really mean in a fair and practical world. And I don't think that, defined that way, we'll be able to show much of anything that fits a reasonable person's views of it. But, again, this is an area which is fertile ground for the most pronounced impulses in denial--that impulse to denial being, in my opinion, now one of the most salient characteristics of Americans (and plenty of other people, too, by the way) concerning their national politics. Or, rather, "coincidentally", no? The premises, even if faulty (though I don't think they are), don't, for that reason alone, preclude the possibility that the conlusion is correct. RE: "How is that possible, (Note: i.e. aforementioned critics and their having been ignored by Obama) if there are no people to his left? Regardless, it most certainly does not prove the point, any more than Romney getting his nomination means there is nobody to his right." You are confusing two different things---one is my view of Obama as the now-sole-embodiment of the what constitutes the poltical spectrum's Left extreme. And I made that point clear at the outset; this isn't a redefintition of the point, no "moving of the goal-posts,". I stated that " Obama now embodies the extreme Left-ward limits of the real-world political spectrum." That didn't and doesn't mean that in the world, suddenly every person or group holding views to the left of Obama's simply disappeared. It means what I thought was obvious: such people now have no one in the political structure, the formal American political, and esp. electoral, system, simply doesn't extend to them. They lie beyond, outside the limits of what is now represented and representable or, more precisely, what's happened is that their lying beyond it has now been made manifest whereas previously, any astute observer might have already recognized what this recent electoral outcome, for me, confirms as true--unless and until that political order is reformed, refashioned to once again--as in long past decades, at least to some pathetically puny extent--it once did "represent" them. My argument is that the re-election of Obama sounds the mourning bell for such people, until things change and change rather profoundly. It's to point this out and to argue that it is significant, as I see it, that I thought to offer this thread in the first place. I assume, yes, that many, indeed, the great majority of Americans don't recognize these things as true and, as I said, don't want to recognize them as true, either. If that weren't the case, there'd be no occasion for bringing it up for comment.

I clarified and supported it. There was and there is no significant opposition to Obama, none, zero --the proof of which is in the fact that he has just been re-elected having made no concessions to anyone other than to Republicans in the House and the Senate. As for concessions to his present or former supporters on the left who criticized him over the course of his first term, he made simply no concessions. Perhaps you're thinking of the lame excuses he offered for why he had no choice but to let the Republicans roll him again and again. But, I challenge you: please present to us the case showing that there is and was actual opposition from his left-wing and that it counted for something. You haven't done this. You've merely asserted it as true. Where are the proving examples? For my proof, I give you: the re-elected President of the United States, Barack Obama, who raised money, waged a campaign and won re-election, all without the slightest concern for any of his present or former Left-wing critics inside or outside the Democratic party, nor, clearly any need for them. And that, in part, as I see it, is the problem, yes.

It seems to me that the"defense" of that view is now simply beyond question demonstrably true: there is and there clearly was simply no opposition of any effective sort or kind, whatsoever, from any quarter, to the re-nomination of and, we now see, the actual re-election of Barack Obama. I'd rather challenge you to point to any living, breathing, significant opposition from the Left about which it can be seriously and honestly said that Obama is obliged to reckon with them. I don't see these people and I don't think that anyone has or can point them out. Obama ridiculed, he scoffed at, he insulted and derided those of his critics to his Left from the earliest days of his first term and it is now clear that he did this with the fully calculated view that these critics were simply and completely irrelevant--a point which his re-election has now confirmed as valid and true beyond sane doubt. This is not something that will sit confortably on the consciences of some Americans. Instead, they'll find it scandalous that such a state of affairs could be true. And, so, in good and time-tested American fashion, they'll steadfastly deny that these are facts and refuse to admit them. And as long as that common response remains the default opinion, we're going to stay right where my analysis implies that we are: in very deep and dangerous denial about the actual state of the political order.

" ...since the Republicans represent the right and the Democrats the left, and they're the majority parties, Obama is the only productive choice for those on the extreme left and therefore represents the way they vote. Is this correct?" Yes, though I think it's worth noting that you put it that way. I think it is or ought to be extremely questionable to put it as "Obama is the only productive choice." (my emphasis added). Be that as it may be, as I see it, in this analysis, productive or not, Obama --and, the point is, all about him and all that resemble him and his point of view--Obama and these like entities are the only "choices" now available, "productive" or not.