|
December 21st 2012... (pg. 18)
|
View this Thread in Original format
| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
pretty sure that was one of my main points. that people who aren't scientists shouldn't talk about science, since they know nothing about it... |
I don’t need to be an expert to know my PC works :rolleyes: indeed I have done an admirable job of stomping your nonsense in this thread into the ground with a useless arts degree. Imagine what an actual scientist could do. |
|
|
| EgosXII |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
I don’t need to be an expert to know my PC works :rolleyes: indeed I have done an admirable job of stomping your nonsense in this thread into the ground with a useless arts degree. Imagine what an actual scientist could do. |
lol- all you've done is focus on random parts of it, and make me go on random tangents... i don't think you 'stomp'ed the 4 points i made a bit a go. |
|
|
| batemanscott |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
well, scotty too hotty can cut and paste his own ideas over the top of what i posted, but that's not the same thing as behaving in the same way as conspiracy theorists.
so i must respectfully disagree - the wider scientific/historical/academic etc community do not behave the same way as the conspiracy theorist. i see the difference everyday in the political forums on TA or the JREF forums
the difference is quite stark. |
Seriously tho dude - i don't buy in to any of the conspiracy theories around and you know im pretty right winged with most things.
I (wrongly) supported the war in iraq, I vote liberal and love big corporations for the most part. I am to a large extent (tho not entirely) pro US so not the 'type' to go screaming 'Its a conspriacy!'. But i also think that there is a lot of good evidence presented by many of these people that is quickly shut down by the conspiracy denialists using much of what was written above.
I dont think conspiracy theorists put their case forward better than those that deny them in any way at all but from what i have seen those that deny them do not do so in a manner different to the way i edited what you had posted.
does that make any sense? I guess what i am saying is that i agree with what you posted but think that the points you posted apply equally to the other side of the argument. |
|
|
| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
i don't think you 'stomp'ed the 4 points i made a bit a go. |
well you wouldn't would you :p im unsure to what you refer...
| quote: | Originally posted by batemanscott
Seriously tho dude - i don't buy in to any of the conspiracy theories around and you know im pretty right winged with most things.
I (wrongly) supported the war in iraq, I vote liberal and love big corporations for the most part. I am to a large extent (tho not entirely) pro US so not the 'type' to go screaming 'Its a conspriacy!'. But i also think that there is a lot of good evidence presented by many of these people that is quickly shut down by the conspiracy denialists using much of what was written above.
I dont think conspiracy theorists put their case forward better than those that deny them in any way at all but from what i have seen those that deny them do not do so in a manner different to the way i edited what you had posted.
does that make any sense? I guess what i am saying is that i agree with what you posted but think that the points you posted apply equally to the other side of the argument. |
oh yeah, i was pretty surprised by your thread given that you've never shown yourself to be a ing crazy loon before! :D i think people like myself might occasionally behave similarly in regards to that top-10 list, but those whom i base my opinions on certainly do not.
There is a wealth (no pun intended) of professional conspiracy theorists who do nothing but promote lies in the hope of selling mugs or tshirts.
too many "internet detectives" are learning about the world in ty youtube videos whilst ignoring the plethora of established knowledge on various subjects.
but this has been the most interesting thread on auTA for ages, and for that we thank you. fag. |
|
|
| EgosXII |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
well you wouldn't would you :p im unsure to what you refer... |
course i would, just like you'd think you'd beaten me..
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
all i'm trying to say, and getting mega-sidelined in doing it is:
i don't think science is all encompassing
i think there's things that are beyond science's grasp
science admits neither of these things
and i hate lay-scientists who have made science into a virtual religion, that they use instead of religion to create something all humans love to have: belief and faith. |
and this is the post i was referring to. :) |
|
|
| gumble |
Damn you people, 11 pages to answer now!
Evolution
| quote: | Originally posted by batemanscott
I have read quite a bit that says we still haven't found the so called 'missing link' between modern day man and the 'monkeys', something about missing chromosomes or something like that.
Can you explain this to me?
|
We’ve got pretty damn good evidence (both DNA and fossil and also tool usage) that the link between apes and humans is Australopithecus, a bipedal hominid genus. We also share 98% of our DNA with bonobos (a chimpanzee).
You’d have to ask me a more direct question, but I’m not hugely into human evolution.
Early evolution of humans is a ‘touchy’ subject often because people believe it degrades us to “just another animal”. I think that it really doesn’t, and that were we are at in terms of asking questions about where we came from and such, really sets us apart as a unique being.
We may just be on an insignificant speck of a planet in a pretty un-special system, at the corner of the universe, but the fact we are here today and are starting to understand this is what makes us special.
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
the point is that there is no "missing link" there is just one long, long chain. every time scientists fill one "gap" with a new fossil, all creationists see is two new missing spaces. |
Well, yes and no. There are plenty of gaps in all forms of evolutionary lineages, fossils aren’t formed easily and they aren’t formed for every single evolutionary step, otherwise I’d be out of a career.
What we do is look at the available evidence in both fossil and genetic (where available) and piece together the puzzle, which takes time – but when different lines of evidence start to match up it reinforces the hypotheses.
What happens is that people opposed to evolution focus on the gaps, rather than the other 90% of evidence which tells the story.
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
I'm sure i've not done anywhere near as much research as you, and i'm saying i don't disagree with evolutionary theory, but the amount of confounding variables in claiming how exactly evolution works are pretty phenomenal, aren't they!?
In 1000 years (after clearly documenting genetic change), maybe evolution will be considered true (and by true i mean not 'probably true', but 'undeniably true')--- |
Evolution is considered true by almost every scientist (bar some young-earthers). Scientists add support for evolutionary processes every day into the scientific literature. It is also observable in laboratory experiments in real time, on a small scale (proteins).
Now I think “scale” is what people have trouble grasping. I don’t think anyone would deny that domestic dogs came from wolves right? This gets referred to as “micro-evolution”, that small changes in the expression of genes result in distinct appearance differences (phenotypes).
The only difference is TIME, a collection of small changes = a big change = a new ‘species’ = new ecological limits = diversification = a new evolutionary lineage.
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
fossils are great, but how does science KNOW (again, in the 100% positive sense) what they were!?!
|
I’ve got a fossil of a fish here, its 150 million years old. I can tell it’s a fish because it looks like a fish. If was a palaeontologist I could tell it was a fish from one bone, because I would have looked at thousands of fish bones, extinct and extant, and know what they look like.
If I then find a bone that’s kinda like a fish, but kinda like an amphibian, I would go and compare it to complete skeletons of both fish and amphibians, and also the complete fossils we have of things in between.
If I now know what I’m kinda dealing with, I can work out where it fits in evolution, due to the shared ancestral and derived characteristics it possesses. Those characters are the evidence.
Its not guess-work – its called a “hypothesis”. It can either then get refuted or supported through further evidence, increasing our current knowledge.
One of those lines of evidence is molecular (DNA) work. Just the other week, a paper was published which was able to get a fragment of DNA from a T ING REX FOSSIL (ultimate coolness) and supported the hypothesis that the ancestor of these animals are birds, namely the chicken.
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
p.s: what i was more getting at anyway was that evolution doesn't affect our day-to-day lives, and that's why i said that it's whatever tickles your fancy.
|
Do you know how fast viruses and bacteria evolve? Have you ever wondered why we can’t eliminate the common cold or the other vast array of pathogens in our world? Because they evolve faster than we can currently synthesise antibiotics etc…
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
ok, what i mean to say is that science is the new religion: it doesn't answer every question raised by man, and it can't. However, It claims that it can (even if it can't answer it right now), and i think that's what annoys me. science is just as much a game of faith as religion is, except their dealing with "truths" on different levels.
how is scientific research done? if you think about it, i don't think it's as based in the world, or as empirical as it claims to be. 90% of studies involve massive amounts of 1) creation, and 2) interpretation (one of if not THE most relative things humans can do).
|
Scientific research is done through REPEATABLE METHODOLOGY and published in PEER-REVIEWED journals.
Yes, there is a small level of bias in any study undertaken, but that it is why it is critically reviewed before it is accepted as a valid study.
Creativity is a good thing, it helps to design new ways to answer problems. If we never had creativity how would we have progressed? |
|
|
| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
i don't think science is all encompassing |
well, that depends. are we talking about reality or are we talking about fantasy-land where anything is possible? IF there is no god or afterlife, and IF there are no parallel universes existing concurrently to our own, then i would suggest science IS all encompassing (how could it not be?).
but, in a universe with a divine creator, then of course it cannot be, and i am unaware of anyone that suggsts that it is.
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
i think there's things that are beyond science's grasp |
such as? answer my question as if we know there is no god, because your point doesn't make any sense if you're a priori accepting god's existence.
I would particularly like to know which limitations you know for sure will still exist in say, 1000 or 10000 years.
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
science admits neither of these things |
i don't even understand this point. there are innumerable scientists that have commented on, say, the impossibility of discovering what went on before the big bang. scientists are more open about science's limitations.
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
and i hate lay-scientists who have made science into a virtual religion, that they use instead of religion to create something all humans love to have: belief and faith. |
"faith" is a facet of religion. "knowledge", "facts", "logic" are facets of science. they are not the same thing and i would find it difficult to trust anyone's mental faculties if they genuinely thought that they were.
Yeah, and us "lay-scientists" are sick to ing death of the "new agers" that think just because science cannot categorically prove or disprove something then that means its fair game to inject any retarded or illogical notion into the mix because "ooooh, science has limitations". |
|
|
| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by gumble
Do you know how fast viruses and bacteria evolve? Have you ever wondered why we can’t eliminate the common cold or the other vast array of pathogens in our world? Because they evolve faster than we can currently synthesise antibiotics etc… |
this is one of the best argument for laymen like myself that my chemist friend told me. viruses are pretty much definitive proof (not that it needed any) of evolution at work, in our lifetimes.
i really wonder what the denialists miss out on, coz i think the truths of science are far more fascinating than any fiction. oh, has anyone seen this?
| quote: |
"Reverse Evolution" Discovered in Seattle Fish
Anne Minard
for National Geographic News
May 20, 2008
When a historic cleanup helped clear the waters of a polluted lake near Seattle, a population of tiny, spiny fish called sticklebacks may have "evolved in reverse" to survive.
In the 1950s, Lake Washington, an inland lake that parallels Washington State's Pacific Coast, took on 20 million gallons (76 million liters) of phosphorous-laden sewage a day (see Washington State map).
By the 1960s it had become a 300,000-acre (121,400-hectare) cesspool.
Then an unprecedented U.S.-$140-million cleanup in the mid-1960s transformed the lake into the pristine boaters' paradise that it is today.
But the lake's recovery put at least one species in a pickle: the three-spine stickleback.
The small fish, formerly hidden in the murky depths, found itself swimming in plain view of predators like cutthroat trout.
Researchers now think the threat of predators spurred the fish into rapid evolution toward an older version of itself, evolutionarily speaking.
Today's Lake Washington sticklebacks are a throwback to their ancestors, which grew armored plates as a defense, according to Katie Peichel, a biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
"We call it 'reverse evolution' because the sticklebacks are reverting to an ancestral phenotype [or appearance], that of the marine sticklebacks, which originally founded the lake populations," she said.
Peichel is co-author of a new study on the sticklebacks that appears in the May 20 issue of the journal Current Biology.
Reverse Evolution
There aren't many documented examples of reverse evolution in nature, Peichel said, "but perhaps that's just because people haven't really looked."
In the case of the sticklebacks, returning to an older model made good sense.
When Washington Lake was polluted, visibility was only about 30 inches (76 centimeters).
Sticklebacks didn't need much armor to protect them, because the muck hid them from predators.
In 1968, after the cleanup was complete, the lake's transparency reached a depth of 10 feet (3 meters). Today it approaches 25 feet (7.6 meters).
Before the cleanup, only 6 percent of the fish were completely plated. Now 49 percent are fully armored, with bony plates protecting their bodies from head to tail.
Another 35 percent are partially plated, with about half of their bodies shielded.
This rapid, dramatic adaptation is an example of evolution in reverse, the study team says, because sticklebacks usually evolve toward less armor plating, not more.
Fast-Track Evolution
The speed of the adaptation is what most impressed Peichel.
"The biggest change occurred between 1968/1969 and 1976," she said. "This is really rapid!"
The sticklebacks in Lake Washington contain DNA from both saltwater species, which tend to be fully plated, and freshwater sticklebacks, which tend to be less so, she said.
"Having a lot of genetic variation in the population means that if the environment changes, there may be some gene variant that does better in that new environment, and so nature selects for it," she said.
"Genetic variation increases the chance of overall survival of the species."
A similar number of generations—about 10,000—separate today's Lake Washington sticklebacks and human beings from their respective ancestors, she pointed out.
And as a species, humans have faced selection pressures that call for similar kinds of adaptation.
For example, "humans in northern latitudes have light skin, and now those people are predisposed to things like skin cancer," Peichel said.
The stickleback study does not reveal a cure for such a predisposition to cancer in humans, she said.
But humans and sticklebacks share a gene, called Eda, that is responsible for the sticklebacks' armor, she said. In humans, mutations to Eda can alter skin, teeth, and hair, she explained.
More to See
Andrew Hendry, a biologist with McGill University in Montreal, said the study is a valuable lesson in evolutionary biology.
"To my mind, it shows how humans can dramatically affect the rate and trajectory of evolution in organisms with which we interact," he said.
Michael A. Bell, an ecologist at Stony Brook University in New York, said the new paper "hangs together as a pretty good story."
The role of the Eda gene is well established, he said, and the researchers did all they could to demonstrate that the sticklebacks' quick shift was a direct result of predation.
But there's a fly in the ointment, he said.
"In western North America, there are other clear lakes with stickleback populations and predators, and they're not completely plated," he said.
"Maybe you've got it right, or maybe there's some other environmental effect that's important that you didn't measure."
For her part, Peichel sees additional opportunities for study within Lake Washington.
"We would next like to look at other traits that appear to have changed in the sticklebacks, like body size, and to investigate the genetic basis for these," she said.
 |
|
|
|
| gumble |
IN regards to human accomplishments over the millennia, as a species "Homo sapiens" we have been around for ~200 000 years. That means all biological aspects, including our brain size has been around for ~200 000 years.
Think of what we have to today in terms of technology.
Think of what we could do from scratch given a 2000 year block to do it.
(2000 becuase i dont know how long civilisations usually last?)
If you have a civilisation sitting around thinking about the planets or how to stack rocks for 2000 years, they are going to come up with something cool right?
The difference is these civiliastions get wiped out, we get left with the end product and no idea of how they did it.
THAT DOES NOT TRANSLATE INTO ALIENS OR OTHER BULL, SIMPLY BECAUSE WE DON'T UNDERSTAND HOW (at this stage). |
|
|
| batemanscott |
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
given that you've never shown yourself to be a ing crazy loon before! |
haha funnily enough my honest opinion on everything discussed in this thread is 'i don't know what to think' I trust science but also believe in something bigger so if one day we found scientific proof that we built pyramids etc etc i wouldn't be shocked, nor would i if aliens rocked up screaming 'we're actually from tasmania and we built your homo pyramids'.
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
There is a wealth (no pun intended) of professional conspiracy theorists who do nothing but promote lies in the hope of selling mugs or tshirts. |
I dont doubt it for a second. Got to love people with entrepreneurial vision lol.
| quote: | Originally posted by pkcRAISTLIN
but this has been the most interesting thread on auTA for ages, and for that we thank you. fag. |
true, but i feel as tho we have betrayed the true purpose of TA - pumping up our nights/mixes/ego's. :p
Gumble - thanks for ur informative post to, really interesting stuff :) |
|
|
| EgosXII |
| quote: | Originally posted by batemanscott
haha funnily enough my honest opinion on everything discussed in this thread is 'i don't know what to think' I trust science but also believe in something bigger so if one day we found scientific proof that we built pyramids etc etc i wouldn't be shocked, nor would i if aliens rocked up screaming 'we're actually from tasmania and we built your homo pyramids'. |
+1
Gumble, do you believe that anything exists beyond science's grasp? that's what i was trying to say: science focuses on certain aspects within our world, and uses certain methods to focus on them. is science, as a study the end of everything: is it flawless, as pck seems to suggest.
i agree with bateman: think there's a lot not answered, and what's not answered is pretty open: i don't think science can answer everything, but i think it says it can.
thigns beyond science's scope are things like rationality: things that make us think in certain ways, things like philosophy: i know you can argue that thought can be scientifically tested, but i think things like free will will always be a contentious issue (determinism states that all our actions are just a matter of cause & effect, or perhaps it's just certain reactions that make us act, and we have no choice etc also), but at least now, it's impossible to prove, scientifically.. i think that science struggles as a structure for me as well because it's nihilistic: I think meaning can only come from choices, and thought, but these are really unexplained by science..
i guess i'm just saying that truth can exist that has nothing to do with external conditions, and that aren't tangible things... God was the prime example, but just things like thout, and the creation of belief within human mind's is still a mystery... i think the fact that science believes IT has the only answer to every question disturbs me somewhat..
i guess just the unexplained things in the world too: science says it can explain everything, and the extremity of that scares me a little-- i don't really know anything for certain, but that's why i personally keep an open mind, whereas it seems like science just doesn't... |
|
|
| pkcRAISTLIN |
| quote: | Originally posted by EgosXII
is science, as a study the end of everything: is it flawless, as pck seems to suggest. |
you didn't answer my question-
firstly, imagine a world with no god, no mystical creator of any sort.
now, in this reality what questions would be unanswerable by science? |
|
|
|
|
