Intelligent Design: Coming To A State Legislature Near You

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Cousin Jethro wrote:

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Of major survival interest of course are the graduated truncations that start occurring as the chromosomes age bringing about the conditions of doom for the organism in later and later replications -- got any tonic for that, yet?

Chimney wrote:

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If you are talking about the shortening of telomeres through successive replications within a particular organism, no I don't.
However that mechanism does not exist in the sexual gametes (egg and sperm). i.e. its reset every generation. And, if talking about precellular or simple asexually reproducing monocellualr organisms, it does not occur either.
It appears to be an anti cancer guard, protecting against unrestrained proliferation of cells within an organism. It can fail - as the existence of cancer shows.

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MichiganGEL wrote:

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Well done, young man!
I am curious as to just why you had memorized the value of 2^30?!?
Was it just *that* power of 2, or did you memorize them all - out to particular value?

Katydid wrote:

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HOLY HORIZONTAL HYPERBOLA MATHMAN (sorry, tis my best impression of the boy wonder). To say that is impressive is a vast understatement. WOW!!
There was no luck involved though, you know that do you not? An opportunity presented itself to you and you took full advantage of it. You know what Thomas Jefferson said about luck?
"I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it."
Hoist n’ Huzza!
8^)

PoKay1kaDuB wrote:

What really ergs me is that I don't know if an erg is an erg or a joule a joule. Is every joule the EXACT same as another? Every joule is exactly an eqivalent quantity of "that which can perform work".

How profound. Maybe someday we can harness the power of the stars but so what? that is if our consciousness is nothing more than "matter among matter" or "special matter among average matter", which comes from energy which in turn has no intelligent source, then we are thrashing around and searching in vain. If the universe has no purpose or cause then it likewise can have no answer. What good is an answer to us if we are JUST matter, of no intelligent origin?

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polymath257 wrote:

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Yes, but as happens so often with wunderkind, the early progress wasn't followed by later achievement. I'm now 45 and a math professor of a mid-level university. While I am very good at learning new things and teaching them, I'm not so good at research (as it turns out). It's strange to think my first PhD was half my lifetime ago.*shrug*
Anyway, thanks for the vote of confidence!

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Melanie wrote:

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Wait, there is no way that you have a Master's degree in anything. Prove it by sending out copies to all 300 million americans. By the way, light sarcasm is not the same as blatant mocking.
Ah, 42 new students will come my way in three weeks. 42 new students to teach that we are not mere accidents climbing out of some primordial ooze. 42 new students to question the "facts" of evolution with. 42 new students to examine the complexity of creation with and ask how it could have all happened by "accident".
In that fact...you lose!

Melanie wrote:

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As soon as you explain spontaneous generation!

Melanie wrote:

Even Darwin was distressed with evolution:
http://www.carm.org/evo_questions/deathbed.ht...

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MichiganGEL wrote:

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[Aside: I'm looking forward to when the katydids begin their nightly arguments (Katy *did*!... Katy *didn't*!) in our trees... It'll be a few weeks yet. ;-)]
To Katydid, Drew Smith, Ted, Darwin's Stepchild, et al.,
With your expertise in evolutionary (speciationary?) science, I'd like to get your take on a site that I just came across:
http://www.toriah.com/wiki/index.php...
At least, it seems to be well- referenced in scientific publications.
For example, here's a short excerpt from their response to Miller's chromosome #2 fusion argument, to which you (Katy') alluded:
Quote:
Casey Luskin put it like this: Under Neo-Darwinism, genetic mutation events (including chromosomal aberrations) are generally assumed to be random and unguided. Miller's Cold-Fusion tale becomes more suspicious when one starts to ask harder questions like "how could a natural, unguided chromosomal fusion event get fixed into a population, much less how could it result in viable offspring?" Miller's account must overcome two potential obstacles:
In most of our experience, individuals with the randomly-fused chromosome can be normal, but it is very likely that their offspring will ultimately have a genetic disease. A classic example of such is a cause of Down's syndrome.
One way around the problem in (1) is to find a mate that also had an identical chromosomal fusion event. But Valentine and Erwin imply that such events would be highly unlikely:
"[T]he chance of two identical rare mutant individuals arising in sufficient propinquity to produce offspring seems too small to consider as a significant evolutionary event." (Erwin, D..H., and Valentine, J.W. "'Hopeful monsters,' transposons, and the Metazoan radiation", Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci USA, 81:5482-5483, Sept 1984)
In other words, Miller has to explain why a random chromosomal fusion event which, in our experience ultimately results in offspring with genetic diseases, didn’t result in a genetic disease and was thus advantageous enough to get fixed into the entire population of our ancestors. Given the lack of empirical evidence that random chromosomal fusion events are not disadvantageous, perhaps the presence of a chromosomal fusion event is not good evidence for a Neo-Darwinian history for humans.
Miller may possibly have found empirical evidence for a chromosomal fusion event. But, our experience with mammalian genetics tells us that such a chromosomal aberration should have resulted in a non-viable mutant, or non-viable offspring. Thus, Neo-Darwinism has a hard time explaining why such a random fusion event was somehow advantageous.
If it were to somehow turn out that the fusion of two chromosomes can only result in a viable individual if the fusion event takes place in a highly unlikely and highly specified manner, then we may actually be looking at a case for a non-Darwinian intelligent design event in the history of the human genus.
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<quoted text>"In other words, Miller has to explain why a random chromosomal fusion event which, in our experience ultimately results in offspring with genetic diseases, didn’t result in a genetic disease and was thus advantageous enough to get fixed into the entire population of our ancestors."

Melanie wrote:

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Perhaps you are missing the point...evolution and the billions year old earth receive a free pass in the media and education. Ask any 5th grader when dinosaurs became extinct and they will tell you without batting an eye that it happened 65 million years ago. The FACT of the matter is that they have been indoctrinated into believing in that "fact" by media and educational sources. The TRUTH of the matter is that it could have happened as recently as 2000 years ago or as long as 60 google years ago. There is no evidence of evolution or 65 million year ago dinosaur extinction, but kids are being brainwashed to believe there is.
One more time, for those who just don't get it...why are these "facts" which are really just poor theories given the place of an idol in the media and education and scientific worlds?

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shinningelectr0n wrote:

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Thanks. I just couldn't recall the name of the Clovis Point. Together with your second post, it makes one wonder if most of these stories aren't true. I'm not a meteorology freak but I've read that hurricanes originate from the activities of Saharan dust storms in Africa and migrate generally towards the Caribbean. It has been suggested that human sailing or ice-floe hoping migration to the Americas could have occurred this way, too, resulting in the indigenous races of South America. And the Clovis Point suggestion of the Solutrean hypothesis may have occurred and those peoples may have died out leaving only few artifacts. They made a point, I guess.:) So, instead of fighting between Leif Erickson, Christopher Columbus, Viking interlopers, Bering Straits newcomers, etc., etc., the answer could be answer K: All of The Above.

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shinningelectr0n wrote:

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Your face must be wet from repeatedly spitting into the wind. If I have a speculation that I can't back up with solid numbers, I must be content with or at least resign myself to having others calling it pure speculation....or worse. I admittedly speculate a lot but I have little compulsion to attack my critics because I have not any solid ground to stand on having no reasonable proofs to offer. You are pointing an empty rifle in bluff at folks who know darned well your bullets are harmless.

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Darwins Stepchild wrote:

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The NOVA episode on the Clovis Point talked about the hypothesis that Europeans reached North America bringing the Clovis Point with them.
This is indeed an intriguing idea, but NOVA did point out that the evidence is quite tentative. For one thing, there are differences between the European spear point and the Clovis point. They are similar, but not exact.
As for the gene mentioned, the hypothesis does provide one possible explanation. However, there are other possibilities. For one, it is possible the gene was present in other populations, including one in Siberia, which migrated to North America. Since that time, genetic drift has eliminated the gene in all populations except the population in Europe and the one in North America.
A major flaw in the hypothesis is that there is no known way for the Europeans of that time to have reached North America.
Even the archeologists that proposed the hypothesis agree that the evidence for it, as of now, is slim.

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shinningelectr0n wrote:

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Maybe those Algonquin-Cherokee babes used to vacation in the North of Spain back then.

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TedHOhio wrote:

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What the hell is a "google years". So the evidence is meaningless. Your posts have convinced me that you have no science education regardless of your claims to having a Master's. Your are a lawsuit waiting to happen.

polymath257 wrote:

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Yes, but as happens so often with wunderkind, the early progress wasn't followed by later achievement. I'm now 45 and a math professor of a mid-level university. While I am very good at learning new things and teaching them, I'm not so good at research (as it turns out). It's strange to think my first PhD was half my lifetime ago.*shrug*
Anyway, thanks for the vote of confidence!

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Katydid wrote:

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Then all of your students, past and present were/are extremely fortunate to have you as their professor, with your intellect, you could have done just about anything, worked for any corporation, but you chose to teach.
The U.S. educational system definitely needs 10,000 more of you! We need to work on that little cloning problem!!

Done That wrote:

<quoted text>Is it true that a gift for math burns down? That is does it decline with age?

TedHOhio wrote:

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What the hell is a "google years". So the evidence is meaningless. Your posts have convinced me that you have no science education regardless of your claims to having a Master's. Your are a lawsuit waiting to happen.