Thanks for the promote!

In reply to this comment by kulpims:
*promote

yeesh... so much to discuss, so little time.

The one thing I want to say is this... biology is not impossibly complex. There are fascinating mechanism (trafficking of vesicles!) and still mysterious rules (epigenetics!), but its nothing we can't handle given time. We've only very recently invented technology that lets us BEGIN to really poke around... nearly all of the fanciest microscopes and imaging techniques still require dead, fixed, processed samples in order to investigate the sub-cellular world in detail.

Just... you-know... hug a researcher, maybe give her/him a high-five,... and give them some time to keep pulling back this curtain.

... to continue my previous rant, ... these bio-ethicists like to paint the pictures like we understand waaay more than we actually do about genetics and epigenetics.

Many medical researchers are still afraid (appropriately, in my mind) that the various stem cell treatment and gene therapies will actually give people cancers in the long term.

What about epigenetic, Neil? Hmmm? HMMM?!! ANSWER ME DIGITAL NEIL!!!

Thanks, thats a good point. To be clear, I worded it that way ("Anti-statism, just another religion?') as a play off of @MikesHL13 's summary of the video... my point was that both statism and anti-statism (freemarketology) could be viewed as having a heavy reliance on belief,... in the anti-statism case I refer to belief about the nature of human emotions and desires, and the formation of human societies.

To be transparent, I'm a biologist (specifically a neuroscientist), so my views on society tend to be colored by reading E.O. Wilson, and my views on emotions and desires tend to be colored by a familiarity with anger/emotion/desire issues stemming from hormonal/biological/physiological/chemical/genetic/epigenetic origins. So, yeah, there's that.



>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

If you are going to make a religious analogy, focus on the pro instead of the anti. Anti-statism is not a religion, but Freemarketology is.

Training an animal is a tad bit different than genetic mutation. (And, we're trained animals as well.)
But on the subject of genetic mutation, it is interesting to look at epigenitics - how genes are inherited, separate from dna. In other words, with GMO's, studies indicate that there is a risk of mutating cells in our own body by eating this shit, and if we are carriers of mutated genetics, we will likely pass those mutations to our offspring. Epigenetics is one very possible reason why cancer rates continue to climb. Really, from an epigenetics viewpoint, with GMO's we are running the risk of destroying the entire human race.

>> ^bmacs27:

If you've got me pegged as a creationist/ID proponent, you've got me pegged wrong. I specifically said, filling gaps in knowledge with divine intervention is obviously not valid. My point is simply that many who claim ID is unfalsifiable also claim irreducible complexity as impossible to demonstrate you might open evolution up to the same criticism. I don't really care what side I argue for, I'm just interested in hearing a hire level of debate. Frankly, I didn't want to talk about logical fallacies, I wanted to talk about biochemical processes, like opsin barrels, and energy barriers. That shit is dope.
Now, the real problem here is that what we mean by "evolution" is a moving target. It's so broad it's meaningless. In many ways "Darwinian evolution" has been falsified hundreds of times, much like Newtonian mechanics. It was wrong in the details. In fact, almost every rule I was ever taught at an elementary level about any sort of obviously falsifiable detail of evolution has turned out to be false in some weird or possibly limited case (e.g. epigenetics smells awfully Lamarckian). Still, we don't say "Darwin was wrong." You can't falsify evolution in the broad sense the same way you can't falsify gravity. At this point it's common sense more than science. It's more like a world view we use to form specific falsifiable theories than a theory itself. It's a world view that has been shown to be extraordinarily enlightening for sure. So much so, that at this point even with that Hippo fossil, I don't think people would change their minds.
That's fine. I just get worried about how far people push the assumption of natural selection (e.g. evolutionary psychology). I feel that there would more constructive arguments resulting from a healthy skepticism about it. I understand that there is a sociopolitical undertone to the whole debate, and I respect that. I just happen to think that those with the better arguments will win (natural selection). So often I see bullshit jive being put forth as reasoned debate, which I think is what happens when ideas gain too much popular acceptance. Thus, I'd like to see an elevated level of debate about the topic. Since you aren't going to get QM to form a coherent paragraph, I might as well be the uke.


Well, you may not remember, but not long ago "gravity" was thought not to exist. It took Galileo to prove without a doubt that it did. Same thing with "evolution": the concept was understood before Darwin (by, among others, Lamarck), but it took Darwin and his idea of natural selection to prove it (with Mendelian genetics being the Newtonian mechanics's analog). Newton said that two mass attract each other, and it still is true today only now we know that it is so because they each form a gravity well. In the same way Darwin said evolution happens by natural selection. I do not know how our understanding of the concept will change (or not, which is possible) in the future, but it will still be recognizable as being that the most fit (adapted) organism in a situation surviving and producing more offspring than the rest. What will change, I think, will be how we define fitness, organism, survival and reproduction. Already, the concept of "meme" shows how broadening some of the terms can lead to new understanding in the psychological realm. If you want to show that Darwin is wrong, then by all means attack natural selection and show us a better mechanism for evolution, the same way Einstein replaced Newtonian mechanics with general relativity. But really, I don't see how talking about biochemical processes will ever falsify natural selection. In fact, I don't even see how a flaw in natural selection could be revealed by some biochemical process: they seem to be on two different levels of abstraction. But if you know of one, then by all means enlighten us.

If you've got me pegged as a creationist/ID proponent, you've got me pegged wrong. I specifically said, filling gaps in knowledge with divine intervention is obviously not valid. My point is simply that many who claim ID is unfalsifiable also claim irreducible complexity as impossible to demonstrate, thus they might open evolution up to the same criticism. I don't really care what side I argue for, I'm just interested in hearing a higher level of debate. Frankly, I didn't want to talk about logical fallacies, I wanted to talk about biochemical processes, like opsin barrels, and energy barriers. That shit is dope.

Now, the real problem here is that what we mean by "evolution" is a moving target. It's so broad it's meaningless. In many ways "Darwinian evolution" has been falsified hundreds of times, much like Newtonian mechanics. It was wrong in the details. In fact, almost every rule I was ever taught at an elementary level about any sort of obviously falsifiable detail of evolution has turned out to be false in some weird or possibly limited case (e.g. epigenetics smells awfully Lamarckian). Still, we don't say "Darwin was wrong." You can't falsify evolution in the broad sense the same way you can't falsify gravity. At this point it's common sense more than science. It's more like a world view we use to form specific falsifiable theories than a theory itself. It's a world view that has been shown to be extraordinarily enlightening for sure. So much so, that at this point even with that Hippo fossil, I don't think people would change their minds.

That's fine. I just get worried about how far people push the assumption of natural selection (e.g. evolutionary psychology). I feel that there would more constructive arguments resulting from a healthy skepticism about it. I understand that there is a sociopolitical undertone to the whole debate, and I respect that. I just happen to think that those with the better arguments will win (natural selection). So often I see bullshit jive being put forth as reasoned debate, which I think is what happens when ideas gain too much popular acceptance. Thus, I'd like to see an elevated level of debate about the topic. Since you aren't going to get QM to form a coherent paragraph, I might as well be the uke.

Also just had this thought this morning: Could sexual orientation be epigenetically determined? It would still be innate, but be a response to the conditions that one of your grandmothers lived through, for instance.

>> ^chilaxe:

Recreational genealogy seems have a strong pull, but it seems almost as meaningless as astrology.
You only share 12.5% of your genes with each of your 8 great-grandparents, and genes can have very different effects depending on which other genes are present. If you want to know who you are, look at yourself, not your great-grandparents or anybody else.


That is true, but you should also consider possible effects from epigenetics.

Read the wiki entry, it's quite fascinating.

Excerpt from wiki:
In biology, and specifically genetics, epigenetics is the study of inherited changes in phenotype (appearance) or gene expression caused by mechanisms other than changes in the underlying DNA sequence, hence the name epi- (Greek: επί- over, above) -genetics. These changes may remain through cell divisions for the remainder of the cell's life and may also last for multiple generations. However, there is no change in the underlying DNA sequence of the organism;[1] instead, non-genetic factors cause the organism's genes to behave (or "express themselves") differently.

cool epigenetics shout-out at 2:40... classy sift.

Well, the talk was given in feb 2003 - the Human Genome Project had only just finished the "complete" map of human dna. Also, I think the main thrust of the talk was about reprogramming. It seems epigenetics would be only tangentially relevant as a modulator of code, not the code itself.

Well, the talk was given in feb 2003 - the Human Genome Project had only just finished the "complete" map of human dna. Also, I think the main thrust of the talk was about reprogramming. It seems epigenetics would be only tangentially relevant as a modulator of code, not the code itself. But I don't really know that much about it. Anyway, hope you liked it.

In reply to this comment by bamdrew:
Has some good lines at 10min.

What about epigenetics? Its 2008, not 1998; its weird to talk about the importance of genetics and barely mention the next level of complication.

Has some good lines at 10min.

What about epigenetics? Its 2008, not 1998; its weird to talk about the importance of genetics and barely mention the next level of complication.

The Hitler argument is just a logical fallacy. It's called affirming the consequent.

This is the logic:
Hitler was atheist and was bad. Therefore atheists are bad.

You cannot confirm the cause without establishing the same link between the cause and effect of both situations.

In Hitler's case, there is a link: He had ultimate power over the people and no accountability to peer criticism. Most religions carry these same ideas, which is why they also have these bad histories.

Albeit, there are more operatives in these situations than I'm addressing, such as the "them and us" phenomena, or genetic and epigenetic traits of Hitler, or Hitler's childhood. The list goes on.