From Wikipedia:
Adalimumab (HUMIRA, AbbVie) is the third TNF inhibitor, after infliximab and etanercept, to be approved in the United States. Like infliximab and etanercept, adalimumab binds to Tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNFα), preventing it from activating TNF receptors. Adalimumab was constructed from a fully human monoclonal antibody, while infliximab is a mouse-human chimeric antibody and etanercept is a TNF receptor-IgG fusion protein. TNFα inactivation has proven to be important in downregulating the inflammatory reactions associated with autoimmune diseases. As of 2008 adalimumab has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, ankylosing spondylitis, Crohn's disease, moderate to severe chronic psoriasis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis. Although only approved for ulcerative colitis from late 2012 by the FDA in the disease's management, it has been used for several years in cases that have not responded to conventional treatment at standard dosing for Crohn's Disease.

But yes, seeing a powerfull and potetially extremly harmful drug advertised for what seems to be (I am no medical expert) a "cosmetic disorder"is frightening.

This is why I laugh at most guys with gym memberships, who keep big tubs of protein powder at home on the kitchen counter. You don't need any of that shit. As this guy demonstrates all you need is commitment and intensity. Personally I'm dying to install a pull-up bar somewhere in my apartment.

Protein.

True but the Atheist also holds the "belief" that there is not GOD. So which belief is more correct? For me to get into a biblical debate with you and the atheist sift community would be pointless. It's like the saying you can bring a horse to water but you can't make him drink. So this makes me search the web for other ways to argue the point. Here is 1 of them.

Mathematically speaking evolution falls flat on it face..
Lifted from site: http://www.freewebs.com/proofofgod/whataretheodds.htm



Suppose you take ten pennies and mark them from 1 to 10. Put them in your pocket and give them a good shake. Now try to draw them out in sequence from 1 to 10, putting each coin back in your pocket after each draw.

Your chance of drawing number 1 is 1 to 10.
Your chance of drawing 1 & 2 in succession is 1 in 100.
Your chance of drawing 1, 2 & 3 in succession would be one in a thousand.
Your chance of drawing 1, 2, 3 & 4 in succession would be one in 10,000.

And so on, until your chance of drawing from number 1 to number 10 in succession would reach the unbelievable figure of one chance in 10 billion. The object in dealing with so simple a problem is to show how enormously figures multiply against chance.

Sir Fred Hoyle similarly dismisses the notion that life could have started by random processes:

Imagine a blindfolded person trying to solve a Rubik’s cube. The chance against achieving perfect colour matching is about 50,000,000,000,000,000,000 to 1. These odds are roughly the same as those against just one of our body's 200,000 proteins having evolved randomly, by chance.

Now, just imagine, if life as we know it had come into existence by a stroke of chance, how much time would it have taken? To quote the biophysicist, Frank Allen:

Proteins are the essential constituents of all living cells, and they consist of the five elements, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur, with possibly 40,000 atoms in the ponderous molecule. As there are 92 chemical elements in nature, all distributed at random, the chance that these five elements may come together to form the molecule, the quantity of matter that must be continually shaken up, and the length of time necessary to finish the task, can all be calculated. A Swiss mathematician, Charles Eugene Guye, has made the computation and finds that the odds against such an occurrence are 10^160, that is 10 multiplied by itself 160 times, a number far too large to be expressed in words. The amount of matter to be shaken together to produce a single molecule of protein would be millions of times greater than the whole universe. For it to occur on the earth alone would require many, almost endless billions (10^243) of years.

Proteins are made from long chains called amino-acids. The way those are put together matters enormously. If in the wrong way, they will not sustain life and may be poisons. Professor J.B. Leathes (England) has calculated that the links in the chain of quite a simple protein could be put together in millions of ways (10^48). It is impossible for all these chances to have coincided to build one molecule of protein.

But proteins, as chemicals, are without life. It is only when the mysterious life comes into them that they live. Only the infinite mind of God could have foreseen that such a molecule could be the abode of life, could have constructed it, and made it live.

Science, in attempt to calculate the age of the whole universe, has placed the figure at 50 billion years. Even such a prolonged duration is too short for the necessary proteinous molecule to have come into existence in a random fashion. When one applies the laws of chance to the probability of an event occurring in nature, such as the formation of a single protein molecule from the elements, even if we allow three billion years for the age of the Earth or more, there isn't enough time for the event to occur.

There are several ways in which the age of the Earth may be calculated from the point in time which at which it solidified. The best of all these methods is based on the physical changes in radioactive elements. Because of the steady emission or decay of their electric particles, they are gradually transformed into radio-inactive elements, the transformation of uranium into lead being of special interest to us. It has been established that this rate of transformation remains constant irrespective of extremely high temperatures or intense pressures. In this way we can calculate for how long the process of uranium disintegration has been at work beneath any given rock by examining the lead formed from it. And since uranium has existed beneath the layers of rock on the Earth's surface right from the time of its solidification, we can calculate from its disintegration rate the exact point in time the rock solidified.

In his book, Human Destiny, Le Comte Du nuoy has made an excellent, detailed analysis of this problem:

It is impossible because of the tremendous complexity of the question to lay down the basis for a calculation which would enable one to establish the probability of the spontaneous appearance of life on Earth.

The volume of the substance necessary for such a probability to take place is beyond all imagination. It would that of a sphere with a radius so great that light would take 10^82 years to cover this distance. The volume is incomparably greater than that of the whole universe including the farthest galaxies, whose light takes only 2x10^6 (two million) years to reach us. In brief, we would have to imagine a volume more than one sextillion, sextillion, sextillion times greater than the Einsteinian universe.

The probability for a single molecule of high dissymmetry to be formed by the action of chance and normal thermic agitation remains practically nill. Indeed, if we suppose 500 trillion shakings per second (5x10^14), which corresponds to the order of magnitude of light frequency (wave lengths comprised between 0.4 and 0.8 microns), we find that the time needed to form, on an average, one such molecule (degree of dissymmetry 0.9) in a material volume equal to that of our terrestrial globe (Earth) is about 10^243 billions of years (1 followed by 243 zeros)

But we must not forget that the Earth has only existed for two billion years and that life appeared about one billion years ago, as soon as the Earth had cooled.

Life itself is not even in question but merely one of the substances which constitute living beings. Now, one molecule is of no use. Hundreds of millions of identical ones are necessary. We would need much greater figures to "explain" the appearance of a series of similar molecules, the improbability increasing considerably, as we have seen for each new molecule (compound probability), and for each series of identical throws.

If the probability of appearance of a living cell could be expressed mathematically the previous figures would seem negligible. The problem was deliberately simplified in order to increase the probabilities.

Events which, even when we admit very numerous experiments, reactions or shakings per second, need an almost-infinitely longer time than the estimated duration of the Earth in order to have one chance, on an average to manifest themselves can, it would seem, be considered as impossible in the human sense.

It is totally impossible to account scientifically for all phenomena pertaining to life, its development and progressive evolution, and that, unless the foundations of modern science are overthrown, they are unexplainable.

We are faced by a hiatus in our knowledge. There is a gap between living and non-living matter which we have not been able to bridge.

The laws of chance cannot take into account or explain the fact that the properties of a cell are born out of the coordination of complexity and not out of the chaotic complexity of a mixture of gases. This transmissible, hereditary, continuous coordination entirely escapes our laws of chance.

Rare fluctuations do not explain qualitative facts; they only enable us to conceive that they are not impossible qualitatively.

Evolution is mathematically impossible

It would be impossible for chance to produce enough beneficial mutations—and just the right ones—to accomplish anything worthwhile.

"Based on probability factors . . any viable DNA strand having over 84 nucleotides cannot be the result of haphazard mutations. At that stage, the probabilities are 1 in 4.80 x 10^50. Such a number, if written out, would read 480,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000."
"Mathematicians agree that any requisite number beyond 10^50 has, statistically, a zero probability of occurrence."
I.L. Cohen, Darwin Was Wrong (1984), p. 205.

So they have mined about half of all there is..And its not very old.. what happens when all is mined then?

Also, are all these complex calculations actually calculating something useful (besides "finding" bitcoins?) It would be cool if they used it for protein folding or something.

Mostly agree. My favorite thing there is the protein bistro box ... yumm

Of course, you are right that there are other components to health, however, I think the majority of our health is accomplished by what we do to our insides with a minority of the benefit coming through exercise.

I find it compelling that the heart patients too sick for bypass surgery are sent to Joel Fuhrman for fasting followed by a plant-based diet in order to get them safely back to health. In your own back yard, Joe Cross came out with "Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead." and was healed to health through a plant-based diet. The evidence for health through proper nutrition is now overwhelming. From Dr. John McDougal's, "The McDougal Plan," through Dr. Neil Barnard's, "Reversing Diabetes," we are seeing that the western diet is the main reason for the burden on our healthcare system.

My own story is this: Several years ago my blood pressure was 210/120. I was on 4 medications and had edema in my legs and was, at 54 years old, feeling that I was on my way out. The doctors were so concerned that they continued to recommend additional drugs and tests to see what was going on. At that point I went to an old friend named Richard. He is a nutritionist and he and his 10 children have NEVER been to a doctor. (He claims it is because he didn't poison his family with sugar and white flour among other processed foods). Through natural foods and supplements, he healed me. Last year I completed two rounds of P90X. That was the benefit of the internal healing. I was able to do that.

All that being said, a plant-based diet doesn't necessarily mean no meat. But if people choose to do a no meat diet, I suggest strongly that they plan on figuring out their protein requirements and making sure that they can eat a broad enough range of fruits, vegetables and legumes in order that they don't run a protein deficit. That is different, in my way of thinking, from a protein deficiency. It is possible to get all of some of the amino acids needed and lack some of the others. Trust me, that results in some weird side effects.

I believe the huge problem with discussing this issue with people is that it seems everyone has something to protect. So I normally don't talk about it unless someone comes to me who wants to get well. Even then, I am just a resource and offer no medical advice personally. I do, however, have a story to share with regards to improper nutrition.

I will add this beautiful tidbit : Linus Pauling's protocol for reversing heart disease is, in my mind, a remarkable piece of work. One doctor, when asked what he thought about it, said that he wasn't too sure it would work, but then again he hadn't won two Nobel Prizes either.

The tension between steward and subdue...

Well, let's put it this way, in 50 years time when the sea comes and subdues most of the coastal land, when we run out of oil and our air is choked and toxic, when we face the real possibility of eating bugs instead of beef (insects have a much higher protein ratio for investment then cattle do) or pan-global starvation, you might want to think about which of the two is more important if you can pull your head out of your self righteous ass...

The bible talks about the sins of the father, well the lack of environmental concern these days is a sin and it will be visited upon our children.

I don't really understand how a pair of entangled electrons allows the bird to detect miniscule changes in the magnetic field, and if they are in superposition, ie they are both simultaneously spin up and spin down, then how does that effect the chemistry of these entangled proteins?

Also, I thought the reason entanglement doesn't break the whole "can't send information faster than the speed of light" was because you had no control over whether you see spin up or spin down, and therefore it was effectively impossible to send information faster than light. Doesn't this example of the robin seem to contradict this?

I did a little digging when I first watched this and all I could really find/understand was they introduced VERY little noise into the magnetic field, a disturbance so fine that the robin would be unable to detect it unless something was going on at the quantum level. Yet, the robin did evidently detect it and thats why these theories exist.

Anywai, its super interesting. good sift.

I believe that Sagemind's point was that before the gun-wielding murderer shot someone, he would have been counted among the responsible, well-trained (possibly), never did anything wrong with their weapon, statistics.

With the bad apples so thoroughly mixed among the good, I'd hesitate to label the barrel "safe for human consumption" and ship it off to the school lunch program.
Better to put screens on the fruit market's windows, so that maggots never have a chance to infest the fruit in the first place. ....sure maggots have a tiny amount of protein.. but very little; we don't really need them.

I don't care what they say. That's not a word.
- Idiots

What it is, is a string of sounds all having their own meanings strung together like a sentence. It reminds me of medical terminology. There's a reason med terminology is not included in the dictionary, they arn't words so much as they are prefexs, suffexes, nouns, verbs and so on, which, when strung together, form a description of a body part or procedure.

So ya, this the "Chemical" name of titin, the largest known protein. It's basicly a description of the molucular breakdown (or recipee) for the chemical. This has been disputed as even being a word. It's like speaking Latin genus names.

You keep using the word diet as something you can just go on and off of. That's the problem; 'Going on a diet' implies that it's temporary. What's needed to eat and live healthy is a permanent lifetstyle change. In other words, you don't stop the diet. The previous diet is what led to getting overweight in the first place, so of course they gain the weight back if they start eating like that again. Exercise all you want, if you take in more calories than you expend, you will gain weight. If you expend more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. It doesn't matter if you have a problem with that, or if people get depressed, or if you just straight up don't think it's a health issue (it is), that's how it works. That's why this argument takes place when this issue is brought up. It really is just a matter of will power and education on nutrition. How much will power's needed depends on the person, along with their knowledge on nutrition and eating well. Breaking these long standing habits can be incredibly tough, but not impossible.

There's a lot of grey area in the discussion of being overweight and healthy/fit/etc. If you have terrible eating habits, exercise will only make things a bit better; it wont magically counteract all the negative aspects of your body composition, or of the food you eat. The effect food can have on a person astronomically outweighs the potential effects of exercise. That's in no way saying exercise is pointless, but if you're diet's not in check, the exercise alone is like ordering a diet coke with your ten cheeseburgers.
>> ^bmacs27:

You guys aren't listening to what I'm saying. There is nothing wrong with eating right and exercising. I have a problem with caloric restriction, or as it is commonly called "dieting." Further, I have a problem with judging health from weight or BMI. There is very little data to back that up, and in fact the data suggest that a low BMI is actually more problematic than a moderately high 30ish BMI in terms of life expectancy. My issue is that it's been so ingrained in people to associate weight loss (an aesthetic issue) with fitness (a health issue). There are plenty of people that are fit, and no matter what they do, will carry extra weight.
To me "eating right" means eating healthy foods, e.g. whole foods, fruits, vegetables, proteins as your primary nutrition rather than fatty and heavily sweetened foods. Exercise is the most important part of the equation. The data shows that so long as you are not sedentary you can pretty much eat and weigh whatever with little to no health consequence.
The depression does not come simply from the lack of eating, and thus the cessation of a rewarding activity. It comes from the diversion of energy away from active use (e.g. in the nervous system) and towards the restocking of fat stores. In other words, you'll never lose weight, and instead will just be bummed out all the time.
You talk of "millions of people" that have successfully lost weight. I'd like to see a data that shows a diet emphasizing caloric restriction leading to long term reductions in weight. Every study I've seen shows that diets of that sort yield short term weight loss although subjects generally reacquire the weight within a year of stopping the diet, and report depression during the diet. Prove me wrong.

You guys aren't listening to what I'm saying. There is nothing wrong with eating right and exercising. I have a problem with caloric restriction, or as it is commonly called "dieting." Further, I have a problem with judging health from weight or BMI. There is very little data to back that up, and in fact the data suggest that a low BMI is actually more problematic than a moderately high 30ish BMI in terms of life expectancy. My issue is that it's been so ingrained in people to associate weight loss (an aesthetic issue) with fitness (a health issue). There are plenty of people that are fit, and no matter what they do, will carry extra weight.

To me "eating right" means eating healthy foods, e.g. whole foods, fruits, vegetables, proteins as your primary nutrition rather than fatty and heavily sweetened foods. Exercise is the most important part of the equation. The data shows that so long as you are not sedentary you can pretty much eat and weigh whatever with little to no health consequence.

The depression does not come simply from the lack of eating, and thus the cessation of a rewarding activity. It comes from the diversion of energy away from active use (e.g. in the nervous system) and towards the restocking of fat stores. In other words, you'll never lose weight, and instead will just be bummed out all the time.

You talk of "millions of people" that have successfully lost weight. I'd like to see a data that shows a diet emphasizing caloric restriction leading to long term reductions in weight. Every study I've seen shows that diets of that sort yield short term weight loss although subjects generally reacquire the weight within a year of stopping the diet, and report depression during the diet. Prove me wrong.

Would he be "more than happy to" stick a needle in his arm to prove it's not full of synthol? I have a hard time believing he ingests 3 kilos of protein a day! Also, you'd think his forearms would be a bit more in line with the size of his biceps/triceps

@hpqp
I am not at all ashamed of my verbose, self-indulgent dross, so here we go!

Something has to be extra-physical, as least based on our current model. I can fully accept that a brain by itself can receive sensory input, process it against memory, and thus act in a completely human way indistinguishable from a conscious human, but on its own can literally be no more "conscious" than a river flowing down a mountain. Our current view of the physical universe does not tolerate any rational physical explanation of consciousness. Any given moment of human experience - the unified sensory experience and stream of consciousness - does not exist in a single place at a single instant. To suggest that the atoms\molecules\proteins\cells of the brain experience themselves in a unified manner based on their proximity to or electrochemical interaction with each other is magical thinking. Atoms don't do that, and that's all that's there, physically.
I disagree that consciousness is subordinate to cognition in terms of value. Cognition is what makes us who we are and behave as we do, but consciousness is what makes us different from the rest of the jiggling matter in the universe.

A couple of posts back, you challenged my statement about abstinence education as demonstrating a lack of pragmatism. I didn't really address it in my reply, but I'd prefaced it with the understanding that it's not a magical incantation. I know people are still going to have sex, but I suggested that has to be a part of education. People have to know that you can still get pregnant even if you're using the contraceptives that are available. They have to at least know the possibility exists. It's one more thing for them to consider. People are still going to drive recklessly even if you tell them they can crash and kill themselves despite their airbags, seatbelts, and crumple zones, but that doesn't mean it's not worth it to educate them about the possibility. I fail to see how that's not pragmatic.

I didn't reply to your comment about adoption vs abortion because I'm not sure there's anything else to add on either side. As I've said, my beliefs on this are such that even a grossly flawed adoption\orphan care system is preferable to the alternative, even if it means that approximately 10 times the number of children would enter the system than have traditionally been adopted each year. (1.4M abortions annually in the US, ~140K adoptions, but there are several assumptions in that math that wouldn't hold up to scrutiny.) Many right and just things have unpleasant consequences that must be managed. (The typical counter here is that Pro-Lifers tend to also be fiscal\social conservatives and won't fund social services to care for these new individuals they've "protected" into existence. That's just another issue of taking responsibility for the consequences of choices. If they get what they want, they need to be held to account, but it's a separate issue. A related issue, but a separate issue.)

Criminalizing\prohibiting almost any activity results in some degree of risky\dangerous\destructive behavior. Acts must be criminalized because there are individuals who would desire to perform those acts which have been determined to be an unnecessary imposition on the rights of another. Criminalization does not eliminate the desire, but it adds a new factor to consideration. Some will decide the criminalization\prohibition of the act is not sufficient deterrent, but in proceeding, are likely to do so in a different manner than otherwise. The broad consideration is whether the benefits of criminalization\prohibition outweigh the risks posed to\by the percentage who will proceed anyway. Prohibition of alcohol failed the test, I expect the prohibition of certain drugs will be shown to have failed the test..eventually. Incest is illegal, and the "unintended" consequence is freaks locking their families in sheds and basements in horrific conditions, but I think most of us would agree the benefits outweigh the detriment there.

Is putting all would-have-been-aborteds up for adoption abhorrent or absurd? The hump we'll never get over is asking "is it more abhorrent than aborting all of them", because we have different viewpoints on the relative values in play. But is it even a valid question? They won't all be put up for adoption. Some percentage (possibly 5-10 percent) will spontaneously miscarry\abort anyway and some percentage would be raised by a birth parent or by the extended family after all. An initially unwanted pregnancy does not necessarily equate to an unwanted child, for a number of reasons. I do not have statistics on what proportion could be expected to be put up for adoption. Would you happen to? It seems like that would be difficult to extrapolate.

The "'potential' shtick" carries weight in my view because of the uniqueness of the situation. There is no consensus on the "best" way to define when elective abortion is "acceptable". Sagan puts weight on cognition as indicative of personhood. As he states, the Supreme Court set its date based on independent "viability". (More specifically, I feel it should be noted, "potential" viability.) These milestones coincide only by coincidence.
Why is it so easy for us, as you say, to retroproject? And why is this any different from assigning personhood to each of a million individual sperm? For me, it's because of those statistics on miscarriage linked above. The retroprojected "potential" is represented by "percentages". At 3-6 weeks, without deliberate intervention 90% of those masses of cells will go on to become a human being. At 6-12 it's 95%. This is more than strictly "potential", it's nearly guaranteed.

I expect your response will be uncomfortable for both of us, but I wish you would expound on why my "It Gets Better" comparison struck you as inappropriate. Crude, certainly - I'll admit to phrasing it indelicately, even insensitively. I do not think it poorly considered, however. The point of "It Gets Better" is to let LGBT youth know that life does not remain oppressive, negative, and confusing, and that happiness and fulfillment lie ahead if they will only persevere.
It's necessary because as humans, we aren't very good at imagining we'll ever be happy again when surrounded by uncertainty and despair, or especially recognizing the good already around us. We can only see torment, and may not see the point in perpetuating a seemingly-unending chain of suffering when release is so close at hand, though violence against self (or others).
This directly parallels the "quality of life" arguments posed from the pro-choice perspective. They take an isolated slice of life from a theoretical unplanned child and their mother and suggest that this is their lot and that we've increased suffering in the universe, as if no abused child will ever know a greater love, or no poor child will ever laugh and play, and that no mother of an unwanted pregnancy will ever enjoy life again, burdened and poverty-stricken as she is.
As you said, we're expecting a woman to reflect "on what would her and the eventual child’s quality of life be like", but we're so bad at that.
And all that quality-of-life discussion is assuming we've even nailed the demographic on who is seeking abortions in the U.S.
Getting statistics from the Guttmacher Institute, we find that 77% were at or above the federal poverty level and 60% already had at least one child.

On a moral level, absolutely, eugenics is very different debate.
On a practical level, the eugenics angle is relevant because it's indistinguishable from any other elective abortion. Someone who is terminating a pregnancy because their child would be a girl, or gay, or developmentally disabled can very easily say "I'm just not ready for motherhood." And who's to say that's not the mother's prerogative as much as any other elective abortion, if she's considering the future quality of life for herself and the child? "It sucks for girls\gays\downs in today's society and I don't think I can personally handle putting them through that," or more likely "My family and I could never love a child like that, so they would be unloved and I would be miserable for it. This is better for both of us."
Can we write that off as hopefully being yet another edge case? (Keep in mind possibly 65% of individuals seeking abortion declare as Protestant or Catholic, though other statistics show how unreliable "reported religious affiliation" is with regard to actual belief and practice.)

_{"Argumentation"? I have learned a new word today, thanks to hpqp. High five!}