On 12/01/2011 07:08 AM, Le_Forgeron wrote:

> Water is paradoxal in that at high pressure the more compact form is
> liquid rather than solid.

Water is unusual in having half a dozen distinct phases rather than just 
3...

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>> I'm not sure that's as much of a problem as you think it is for anything
>> other than fish.
>
>    Well, life on Earth was completely in water for the first... what?
> 3 billion years?

Wikipedia (which is always right) asserts that "life" began 3.8 billion 
years ago, and land plants appeared 475 million years ago.

3,800 - 475 = 3,325 million years = 3.3 billion years with no life on land.

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>> ID is not testable. It's so vague that any time someone falsifies it,
>> the proponents can just claim that the theory says something slightly
>> different, and hence is not falsified.
>
> That's a different problem. Denying the evidence of the failed tests
> doesn't mean that it passed the tests. It only means the proponents are
> pushing the concept regardless of whether it has failed the tests.

No, I'm saying that the ID people keep changing their minds about which 
theory is the one they're advocating.

You don't change the theory half way through the experiment. That's not 
how science works. If your theory is so inadequately specified that you 
can change your mind about it every second Thursday, you're doing it wrong.

(But yes, the ID people *also* deny the evidence too...)

> ID is certainly testable: We've found no irreducibly complex
> substructures, we have overwhelming evidence of evolution, etc.

Correction: "Irreducibly complex" merely means that removing a single 
component makes the thing stop working. We've found *plenty* of things 
that are irreducibly complex. The point is, the ID people argue that 
"irreducibly complex" = "cannot evolve", which is false.

All of which is window dressing, really. All of the "evidence for ID" is 
actually "evidence against evolution". That's not how science works. 
Einstein didn't overturn Netwon's highly successful theory of motion by 
saying "hey, I think this is wrong". He did it by offering something 
better. ID rests on the sadly mistaken belief that "evolution is wrong" 
is the same thing as "ID is right". That's not how it works.

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> This in fact happens. We can even, in many cases, parse out what those
> *where*, sometimes by finding those extra structures still intact in
> other species.

More to the point, biological structures can *change purpose* too.

> And you are dead wrong on the later, evolution **keeps**
> masses of junk, whether it produces a benefit or not.

That too. The human genome has half a dozen broken copies of the globin 
gene, for example. (Plus 4 (?) similar but not identical copies that 
actually work.)

> The single cell do not, in general, contain mitochondria.

False.

Note carefully that "single-celled organisms" covers a vast variety of 
life forms, only some of which are closely related. Many of these 
contain mitochondria, and many do not. The fact that they are 
unicellular does not correlate particularly well with the presence of 
absence of mitochondria.

The distinction you're looking for is between eukaryotes and non-eukaryotes.

> Their genetics are often **far** more streamlined, because
> they can't afford to carry junk around, which doesn't do anything, for
> the reason you describe. It costs resources. Having a sort of "power
> plant" in the cell, whose genetics are 100% geared at producing excess
> amounts of energy, over what is absolutely needed by themselves, allows
> the rest of the genome, in the main cell, to be very sloppy in its
> operations, copying, cleanup, etc. Anything with such an internal power
> plant can afford to keep lots of stuff that does nothing at all, and
> only gets rid of things that are actively defective, usually not by
> deletion, but just by shutting them off, so they do nothing. This allows
> for what, in a single cell, would be egregious errors, such as making an
> exact copy of a sequence, then later having that sequence get mangled
> into a unique function. Its way harder to manage that if you can't
> afford extra copies lying around, where your energy input is drastically
> damaged, if you allow such a copy to happen.

I'm not sure I actually agree with this assessment.

> Most of
> their "changes" are, as a result, point mutation/deletion/addition, not
> the copy of whole sequences.

You got a citation for that?

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On 11/01/2011 07:56 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:

> Seen at least one statement to the effect that "tree" isn't an accurate
> description at all, but rather the complex braiding you see at a river
> delta. It might split off in totally different directions at some
> points, but a lot of stuff close together is prone to flow back and
> forth between channels, maybe even "drifting" back together, when
> previously separate (though, so far we don't see any obvious examples of
> that).

The tree metaphor doesn't account for "horizontal gene transfer".

Bacteria reproduce asexually. However, they sometimes two cells will 
hook up and swap genes with each other (without producing offspring).

Viruses, plasmids and other "transposable elements" can move genes from 
cell to cell. (This is how genetic engineering works.)

The human genome actually contains several (mostly broken) viral genomes 
within it. Usually a virus infects a cell, gets copied, and the cell 
dies. At some point, an egg or sperm cell was infected, and the 
infection became permanent. (And, presumably, not too detrimental.)

There's even some suggestion that these virii's ability to evade the 
immune system might be how viviparous animals were able to evolve. 
(I.e., how an embryo evades the mother's immune system.)

Then of course, the dynamic, ever-changing face of geology and geography 
is such that there is an almost never-ending stream of habitats 
appearing and disappearing all the time. Lakes dry out and become 
multiple lakes, only to later reflood and become a single lake again. 
Hydrothermal sea vents spring up, develop their own local tribe of 
organisms, and then shut down, while new nearby vents appear.

Heck, black people and white people marrying, anyone?

It must surely happen all the time. It doesn't even require physical 
separation. Just any time one group happens to not interact with another 
group, and then later starts interacting again.

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> It's trivial to do in a lab. Take any experiment that speciates fruit flies, 
> for example. Stop it half way through and let them mix together again. 
> Bingo, it happened. :-)

  Can you actually speciate two groups of fruit flies in the lab so much
that they can't reproduce anymore with each other, hence making them two
different species?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 12/01/2011 03:30 PM, Warp wrote:
> Darren New<dne### [at] sanrrcom>  wrote:
>> It's trivial to do in a lab. Take any experiment that speciates fruit flies,
>> for example. Stop it half way through and let them mix together again.
>> Bingo, it happened. :-)
>
>    Can you actually speciate two groups of fruit flies in the lab so much
> that they can't reproduce anymore with each other, hence making them two
> different species?

I should imagine so.

If you can't, take a look at dogs. Some kinds can't interbreed with each 
other, if only due to huge differences in size. Humans did that.

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Jim Henderson <nos### [at] nospamcom> wrote:
> >   Of course it is. It's an implicit encouragement from the government
> >   for
> > people to follow a religious custom.

> IF THEY BELIEVE IN IT.  It's not saying "even if you don't believe in it, 
> give it a try, you might like it".

  Yeah, like there were only two types of people: Those who firmly believe
and those who firmly don't believe. There is nothing in between. Like,
I don't know, impressionable children? Yeah, they don't exist.

  It's not the place for the government to tell people, even indirectly,
that a religion has a sound basis. There *are* impressionable people out
there who will believe something more easily if a high authority promotes
it. There is already enough misinformation out there. The government
shouldn't be encouraging it.

> >> "Shall make no law respecting the establishment of a religion" does not
> >> mean that it prohibits people who work in government from ever talking
> >> about religion.
> > 
> >   Of course they are free to do whatever they want, but not officially
> > on behalf of the government. The government has certain responsibilities
> > and duties towards their citizens.

> Of course they do.  And encouraging people to practice their beliefs - 
> whatever those beliefs are - isn't advocating for a particular religion.  

  Ah, so you want to nitpick between "advocating for a *particular* religion"
vs. "advocating religion". The government can be as religious as they want
as long as they don't advocate any particular religion.

  No, and a thousand times no. It's not the place for the government to
take any stance whatsoever on religion (or non-religion). It doesn't matter
if they differentiate between religions or not. That's not the issue.

  If you ask a government official, in an official setting, "what's the
government's position on religion?", the correct answer is "no comment".

> It doesn't establish a state-sponsored religion at all.  It says "hey, if 
> you believe in this, practice it".  Simple.

  A "national day of prayer" is certainly not a neutral proclamation of
religious freedom, "if you want to do something religious, just do it,
we won't stop you".

  Just think about it like this: Why exactly do you need a "national day
of prayer"? What's so special about that particular day? What purpose does
it serve? Why does the government have to declare a special day for that?

  If you think about the answer, you'll see that the government is not
being neutral and impartial in this matter, as they should.

>  Not advocating for Jesus, 
> not advocating for the Pope

  Advocating prayer. What's the difference, exactly?

> >   When the president speaks to the country on a televised official
> >   ceremony,
> > that's quite different from the president talking with a friend.

> Sure.  And saying "if you believe in this, here's an opportunity to 
> practice it" is different from saying "if you don't, we'll fine you or 
> lock your ass up in jail."

  You don't seem to understand the difference between promoting and forcing.

  You claim is "they are not promoting religion" and your argument for that
is "they are not forcing religion to be practiced". A fallacious argument if
I ever saw one.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   Of course it is. It's an implicit encouragement from the government for
> > people to follow a religious custom.

> Does this mean Black History Month implies you should go out and be Black 
> for a few weeks?

  How exactly does "Black History" imply "you should *be* black"?

  It implies that people should study and consider the history of black
people, doesn't it? So yes, it is quite a similar thing.

  Likewise "national day of prayer" promotes prayer. Not all people are
either firm believers or firm unbelievers. There *are* impressionable
people who may follow authority in these matters, and it's certainly *not*
the place for a secular government to promote religion.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Apparently, the Congress requires the President to announce the national day 
> of prayer. Obama is the most atheist-friendly president we've ever had, afaik.

> """
> The Congress, by Public Law 100-307, as amended, has called on the President 
> to issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as a 
> "National Day of Prayer."
> """

  Ok, I retract my allegation that it was Obama's own decision to announce
the day. It might well be that he had not much choice (lest he cause even
*more* unneeded controversy).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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