>> ^shinyblurry:

I haven't conflated anything. You've simply misconstrued everything I've said because of your belief that RNA is simple, or could spontaneously evolve.


Really? You thought that putting those two words together like that would convince me that you are taking anybody else seriously?

>> ^shinyblurry:

You think your simulation demonstrates the creation of information which could lead to a system that creates cellular life.


No, Please re-read your claim, and my response. You claimed that Information comes Only from minds, I provide counter evidence, you assert that I was claiming something else. I claim that you are not listening, you provide evidence.

>> ^shinyblurry:

such a system could never generate RNA of cellular life.


We have such a system, it's called the universe, and in it we find RNA. The universe does generate RNA, you and I are not in dispute on this point, only on the mechanism of that generation.

>> ^shinyblurry:
Even if it could generate RNA, to evolve the correct sequences of RNA nucleotides to form even one protein would be impossible to achieve even over billions of years, let alone enough proteins to create a cell. Even if it could generate RNA, to evolve the correct sequences of RNA nucleotides to form even one protein would be impossible to achieve even over billions of years, let alone enough proteins to create a cell.


That claim makes no sense.

To assert that something takes a particular amount of time requires a context of how wide spread the attempt is.

As an example I can not build a rocket to put people on the moon, this is impossible, I will not live long enough... None the less a large number of people, working in concert, with worse technology that we have access to did accomplish this task, it's possibility is a matter of scale.

In order to make an anthropic argument, I only need life to have happened once in all the space and time of the entire universe. Now I realize that you are just talking out your ass, that you have no numbers to back up your claims of probability, that your are simply making an argument from incredulity, but if you decide to try and cover your ass with some numbers realize we have about 100B years and 10⁸⁰ atoms to work with.

>> ^shinyblurry:

There is no experiment which has demonstrated that RNA can spontaneously evolve and be capable of creating life, now or ever. There is also no experiment which shows life evolving from non-living matter.


There again with the nonsense phrase, trying to really hit it home that you really have no clue what you are arguing against?

RNA is a molecule, it's not magic, it does nothing but what chemistry would expect of it, and still, it generates information through mutation/selection. This is, again, evidence against your absurd initial position which your argument from incredulity can not address. Even if you question the source of the molecule, the mechanism is the same, RNA is not a god antenna, it's a molecule, that synthesizes information through a simple, well understood, physical process.

>> ^shinyblurry:

The information is what designed and built the simulation, and its structure generates different arrangements of that information based on certain preprogrammed variables which do not change. You are not making anything truly new, rather you are just shuffling things around.


And neither has anybody, and you never have, and I never will. We are all bounded by our universe, we can not create or destroy, only move and arrange. There is, as far as we can tell, never anything new, and to say that that is true of the simulation provides no information about how it may be different from the physical universe in which we live, it is only one more way in which it is similar.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Such a simulation could never evolve on its own outside of programming.


Do you not get the concept of simulation? Nobody has claimed that the simulation is "real" only that it mimics, in a predictive way, certain aspects of the physical universe. Specifically it illustrates the compounding result of mutation/combination/selection, which is to synthesize information about the environment in a manner coded to best deal with that environment, a process, which you assert can not happen.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Just as DNA could never evolve on its own. The digital information it contains transcends its medium, just as a story transcends the paper and ink it is written on. Information only comes from minds, and that is what DNA code points to.


Your comparison is poor, paper and ink don't create words, DNA does. Understanding the information may require a "mind", whatever that means, but the information effecting and shaped by the physical world only requires mutation/selection, and we had that on this planet for billions of years before anybody realized there was any information in the system at all.

I haven't conflated anything. You've simply misconstrued everything I've said because of your belief that RNA is simple, or could spontaneously evolve. You think your simulation demonstrates the creation of information which could lead to a system that creates cellular life. This is false; such a system could never generate RNA of cellular life. Even if it could generate RNA, to evolve the correct sequences of RNA nucleotides to form even one protein would be impossible to achieve even over billions of years, let alone enough proteins to create a cell. There is no experiment which has demonstrated that RNA can spontaneously evolve and be capable of creating life, now or ever. There is also no experiment which shows life evolving from non-living matter.

The information is what designed and built the simulation, and its structure generates different arrangements of that information based on certain preprogrammed variables which do not change. You are not making anything truly new, rather you are just shuffling things around. Such a simulation could never evolve on its own outside of programming. Just as DNA could never evolve on its own. The digital information it contains transcends its medium, just as a story transcends the paper and ink it is written on. Information only comes from minds, and that is what DNA code points to.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
You're just illustrating my point. That program was designed and coded by a mind. It is the coded digital information which makes it possible.

So you are claiming that the designs are placed in the simulation by the programmer, that they are deceiving you when they claim that the car is designed by genetic selection?
There is information in the simulation, the information is in the physics and the randomly generated track, just as in our universe the physical constraints create conditions that privilege certain patterns in both chemistry and behavior. Since the only non-random input to the system is physics based on our own, are you claiming that physics is a "mind" ?
>> ^shinyblurry:
It is the same story for DNA, and there isn't any naturalistic explanation for where the digital information came from; rather we know that information comes from minds, just if we see a message written in the sand we know a mind was behind it.

Here you conflate the data with the structure, you miss the basic fact that there are many, not terribly complex, chemicals that self replicate. You seem to be unaware that RNA ( referenced in your little puff piece apologetics video) is both self sorting and self replicating, requiring effectively no external mechanism to enable the creation of a system which synthesis information in the same manner as the simulation I linked.
Again you refuse to have a serious conversation, as you will not even address my points, you claim things without evidence, and then "support" them with hyperbole. If you are not claiming that physics is a mind, then you have not even bothered to comprehend the most basic explanation of that you claim to be arguing against, you are instead arguing against your own fever dream strawman, and not addressing any of us at all.
If you intend to navel gaze, please use your navel, the internet consist mostly of real people, Poe's law suggests you may even be one of them, so please at least attempt to seriously interact with us.

This, that imaging technology that can record what a person is thinking, and gamers solving a protein folding problem with a game.... this was a pretty damn good week for science.

It's been said already, but I'll say it again. 'Free market' doesn't apply here. They didn't just release their data and ask someone else to do it for them. FoldIt is a crowd-sourced protein-folder. It's a fancy version of the programs that spammers use to crack CAPTCHAs: you farm the problem that's difficult for a computer to do out to human labor. This is no different from the researchers hiring computer time at Amazon or releasing an @Home distributed computing program to get more computer time. The only novel thing here, that makes for a good headline, is that it's in the shape of a video game on the labor's end.

That's what it was the last time I played FoldIt, anyway. Is there something different here?

>> ^JiggaJonson:

There are 34 different pharmaceutical companies in the United States currently. There are 34Not one of them pulls down less than 1.6 billion dollars a year. The average revenue of the bottom ten pharmaceutical companies is 2.4 billion. The top ten make at least 10 billion a year in revenue with Johnson and Johnson pulling down a whopping 70 billion in revenue.


My point exactly. They're making a killing because there's such little competition in the marketplace. 34 doesn't seem like a small number to you? There are more mechanics in your hometown most likely.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

Assuming your figure is correct, even the smallest of the pharmaceutical companies in the US would have access to producing something like the polio vaccine if the current cost to bring drug to market is in fact $802 million.


You're missing the point. Let's remember what this blog was about: what I'm assuming is more than 34 companies or schools have researched the AIDS protein for over three decade and they weren't able to do what the unlimited gamers online did in three weeks. That's opening the market. I know accepting that causes some unsettling cognitive dissonance, but there it is all pink and naked.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

I still don't understand why you think a smaller pharmaceutical company would shy away from production/distribution of a drug if it was all already paid for through a nonprofit like the March of Dimes.


Because instead of spending $800 million for one drug, they could spend $800 million for who knows how many drugs. Ten. Fifty. Maybe hundreds. Thousands? $800 million is a lot of money.

Especially when it's "cost of doing business" the large pharmaceutical companies probably wrote into the law when their lobbyists got the legislators to pass it. I'd much rather pay $800 million as a rich corporation so only the rich investors can compete with me. That ensures less competition. And the less competition, the higher the profits for an inferior product. As one of the 34 I'd prefer that to compete with hundreds of companies.

And private charities won't cover it all. You need investors. And if you're an investor with minimal capital who can't afford the risk of the $800 million price tag, you'll probably not invest. What do you have against competition? Don't you agree that more competition would be better? Isn't that what we've seen with the gamers?

>> ^JiggaJonson:

Nevermind the fact that Washington University, the school that created the Foldit program, is a public (that is to say, funded by the state; a.k.a. statist) institution.


Right, and I'm sure the researchers there are fantastic. Still, they opened the market to allow more people to work on what they themselves and others weren't able to succeed at.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

Nevermind the fact that healthcare, up until very recently, has been privatized (excluding medicare and medicaid) for a substantial time now; yet the lifetime cost of HIV medications and treatment is roughly $385,000.


And available only from big pharma. And that's thanks to government regulations. Jonas Salk developed the polio vaccine privately and offered it without patent. If he were to bring the same drug to market today by FDA restrictions he'd have to pay millions.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

Shouldn't free market generic meds have landed in your local Wally World for $5 a month by now? Why is the free market dictating these insane prices where how much you can pay is directly relational to how long you get to live.


The pharmaceutical industry is heavily regulated. I think you're erroneously conflating corporatism with free market.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

Now, as we know, if the market was not worthy, pharmaceutical businessmen would not get involved with it and essentially let the project die. The logical solution to these huge dilemmas in cost then is to create a larger customer base. All they need now is a furtive way to deliver the virus to a sect of the population that is either expendable and large or rich and small.


Again, you're claiming the current market is free. If it was, people like Salk could enter and compete (much like the gamers in the article above) without retribution from government. What you have today is a limited amount of pharma companies that can compete in the market, and because there's less competition, you have higher prices.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

I don't see where the "market" part comes in. Just the "free" part.


The market is just a system of exchange. Look at my example of Salk above. He developed and released a cure to polio, but today the restrictions on the market makes this kind of charitable action illegal. But in regards to the article specifically, Wash. Univ. opened their system of exchange and asked the online gaming community to help in figuring out a complex structure of an AIDS protein. The exchange was charitable. That's the free market.

Now if there was a regulation against this sort of thing because the online gamers weren't "licensed" for instance, then that would be a restrictive market. Right?

>> ^truth-is-the-nemesis:

“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” finally has an answer: The chicken.
The research comes from British scientists out of Sheffield and Warwick universities. It all boils down to one protein—ovocledidin-17 (OC-17)—that is only found inside a chicken's ovaries, and is essential for eggshell formation.
Although the protein has been studied as part of eggshell development before, researchers used a super computer to ‘zoom-in' while a shell was forming, and found that it actually serves as a catalyst.

Source: http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/07/14/the-chicken-and-the-egg
-ancient-mystery-solved/



Ah. but was that protein present before the chicken was considered a chicken? I'd wager that actually, you know, eggs existed prior to chickens.

I do very much hope this is a parody.

“Which came first, the chicken or the egg?” finally has an answer: The chicken.

The research comes from British scientists out of Sheffield and Warwick universities. It all boils down to one protein—ovocledidin-17 (OC-17)—that is only found inside a chicken's ovaries, and is essential for eggshell formation.

Although the protein has been studied as part of eggshell development before, researchers used a super computer to ‘zoom-in' while a shell was forming, and found that it actually serves as a catalyst.



Source: http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/07/14/the-chicken-and-the-egg-ancient-mystery-solved/

>> ^Skeeve:

What I'd like to know is, why HIV specifically?
On paper it is actually quite easy to cure cancer with a virus. Cancer cells differ from healthy cells in that they lack a specific protein on the exterior of the cell that tells the cell to stop dividing when it is touching other cells. If we can manipulate a virus into attacking only cells without that protein then we can cure cancer. It seems to me that having a common cold or flu virus with this modification would work just fine. So why HIV?


HIV is a retrovirus that places genes into our DNA. The genes introduced into the white blood cells then cause the blood cells to produce proteins which kill the cancer cells.

What I'd like to know is, why HIV specifically?

On paper it is actually quite easy to cure cancer with a virus. Cancer cells differ from healthy cells in that they lack a specific protein on the exterior of the cell that tells the cell to stop dividing when it is touching other cells. If we can manipulate a virus into attacking only cells without that protein then we can cure cancer. It seems to me that having a common cold or flu virus with this modification would work just fine. So why HIV?

@SDGundamX

Everything that humans do that isn't provided directly thru our biology is a cultural system.

Science and Religion are both results of cultural evolution.

Before scientific journals and 150 page papers on nucleotides came about, peer review was this:
"Hey man! I discovered this new way to get girls to show up at our parties! Gin rummy & Pinochle!"

'WTF dude, I know for a fact that the only girls that play pinochle are 65 year old ladies. That method will never work'

You are a scientist from birth. Science therefore is essential.
You are not religious from birth. Religion therefore is not.
~~~

To clarify, I said religion & science are geared toward "understanding the universe".
I never said "understanding the physical world".

That was your straw-man so you could talk about some metaphysical gobbledygook I guess.

But you're in even worse footing there because metaphysical things can't be proven.

Religion is useless gobbledygook and serves no purpose in a society that has advanced beyond the need for it.
~~~
Here, I'll use the example how your diet evolved to provide more support for this position.

Humans are carnivorous because early hominids found animal protein - meat - beneficial because it promoted brain & muscle growth.

Eating meat was essential because without it, early human population would have been to weak & stupid to survive.

In 2011, there is absolutely need to consume meat.

We have discovered numerous combinations of plants - like rice & beans - that provided complete proteins and some that provide all essential amino acids outright, like soybeans.

Eating meat nowadays involves massive amounts of resources - land, water, crops - not to mention all the harmful effects like - deforestation, infectious outbreaks, & increased chronic or "lifestyle" diseases like grease encrusted heart muscles.

Consuming meat - like practicing religion - is unnecessary and destructive to our environment.
You only continue to engage in it because of ignorance, propaganda and emotional attachment.
~~~

Sooo, you can keep flappin' your gums.
But until you submit some evidence and not just personal feelings..

This sift talk will continue to head nowhere very quickly

Yes, she mentioned allergies, however underlying these allergies are much more serious problems such as cancer (which she mentioned). Her speech was off the mark and the science was bad in a few places, however the underlying concept is accurate. In addition to this, you link articles showing that there are few or no studies showing the dangers of proteins such as BGH, however her point was that there are no human studies done to prove that it is safe. A 1950's study showing BGH doesn't help dwarves grow doesn't prove it isn't linked with human disease. Also, while her statements about BGH don't seem very scientifically credible, she does actually point out the real problem, the link that BGH has with complications such as mastitis, and the subsequent need for large doses of antibiotics.

>> ^marinara:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1679775/
doesn't mention frankenfoods at all
"top allergy in U.S.: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts (e.g., walnuts, almonds, cashews, pistachios, pecans), wheat, soy, fish, and shellfish"
(http://www.foodallergy.org/downloads/FoodAllergyFactsandStatistics.pdf)
fish shellfish treenuts peanuts eggs aren't frankenfoods, neither is milk even though the TED talker says it is.
(ok my argument here doesn't prove anything)
BGH is nasty for different reasons, like causing girls to enter puberty years earlier.
unless it doesn't
"Is bST a hormone?
Yes. However, there are two types of hormones: steroids and proteins. bST is a protein hormone. Protein hormones have no activity when taken by mouth, while steroid hormones do have activity. For example, insulin is a protein hormone.
Insulin has no activity if taken orally. Therefore, a diabetic has to have injections of insulin. Like insulin, the protein hormone bST has no activity when taken by mouth. In contrast, hormones used in birth control pills are steroids and therefore are effective when taken by mouth. Again, bST has no effect when taken by mouth.
Furthermore, studies were conducted in the 1950's to determine if children suffering from dwarfism could be given direct injections of high levels of bST to stimulate growth. The conclusion of the study was that somatotropin from cows is not active in humans even if injected. Why? The structure of human somatotropin is so different from bovine somatotropin, that injections of high levels of bovine somatotropin into children have no influence on growth and development."
from monsanto's website
actually NYT says milk does not cause puberty in girls
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/health/08real.html
finally here's a real long press release that says that really, no scientific studies have ever been done to link animal hormones to human health problems. Animal products have been tested, but no human studies.
http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/factsheet/diet/fs37.hormones.cfm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1679775/
doesn't mention frankenfoods at all

"top allergy in U.S.: milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts (e.g., walnuts, almonds, cashews, pistachios, pecans), wheat, soy, fish, and shellfish"
(http://www.foodallergy.org/downloads/FoodAllergyFactsandStatistics.pdf)
fish shellfish treenuts peanuts eggs aren't frankenfoods, neither is milk even though the TED talker says it is.
(ok my argument here doesn't prove anything)

BGH is nasty for different reasons, like causing girls to enter puberty years earlier.

unless it doesn't
"Is bST a hormone?

Yes. However, there are two types of hormones: steroids and proteins. bST is a protein hormone. Protein hormones have no activity when taken by mouth, while steroid hormones do have activity. For example, insulin is a protein hormone.

Insulin has no activity if taken orally. Therefore, a diabetic has to have injections of insulin. Like insulin, the protein hormone bST has no activity when taken by mouth. In contrast, hormones used in birth control pills are steroids and therefore are effective when taken by mouth. Again, bST has no effect when taken by mouth.

Furthermore, studies were conducted in the 1950's to determine if children suffering from dwarfism could be given direct injections of high levels of bST to stimulate growth. The conclusion of the study was that somatotropin from cows is not active in humans even if injected. Why? The structure of human somatotropin is so different from bovine somatotropin, that injections of high levels of bovine somatotropin into children have no influence on growth and development."
from monsanto's website

actually NYT says milk does not cause puberty in girls
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/08/health/08real.html

finally here's a real long press release that says that really, no scientific studies have ever been done to link animal hormones to human health problems. Animal products have been tested, but no human studies.
http://envirocancer.cornell.edu/factsheet/diet/fs37.hormones.cfm

Tags for this video have been changed from 'mitsyuki ikeda, protein, recycling, japan, soylent brown, sewage mud' to 'mitsyuki ikeda, protein, recycling, japan, soylent brown, sewage mud, shit burger' - edited by burdturgler

Tags for this video have been changed from 'mitsyuki ikeda, protein, recycling, japan, soylent brown' to 'mitsyuki ikeda, protein, recycling, japan, soylent brown, sewage mud' - edited by burdturgler