1. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #181585 by Quine on May 17, 2008 at 3:14 pm

(1) Go get questions and answers about evolution.
(2) Throw away the correct answers and write in bogus sound-alikes
(3) Present the above and declare that it does not work
(4) Sit back and laugh as those attempting to help do the job of explaining the correct answers
(5) Tell everyone that it is still nonsense
(6) go to (1)

I think it is unlikely that he thinks that we are going to get to a point where we cannot put the correct answers back in, I just think he views it as an effective way to waste people's time. However, there is the danger that a part of his mind is actually learning things that will cause progressively greater cognitive dissonance until he comes to see himself as ... well, the word escapes me, but perhaps Irate will help me out.

2. Pelosi, Reid shunning Ten Commandments?

Comment #181259 by Quine on May 16, 2008 at 7:25 pm

Then these nut jobs can fire up their Noah's Ark 2 spaceship ...

Would that be the "B" ship along with the telephone sanitizers?

Seriously, you really think these nut jobs could work a spaceship?

3. The amazing intelligence of crows

Comment #181216 by Quine on May 16, 2008 at 4:23 pm

DB, see this study of language and "footedness" in African Grey parrots.

4. The amazing intelligence of crows

Comment #181145 by Quine on May 16, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Yes, seqenenre, that was the clip from Attenborough's Life of Birds series that was used in the TED video. Also, the Robin behavior mentioned by Rickshaw is covered in another section where it is shown in context to another bird that follows tortoises around to peck at the divots left in their path. I strongly recommend this program on DVD to all.

Also in that series, Attenborough covers the crows that use sticks to get grubs out of wood, and even shows that some of them take to carrying around their "favorite" sticks. However, this makes what Betty did in the video even more amazing because nowhere in hundreds of thousands of years of evolution did these birds get the skill to use a wire that, unlike a stick, could be bent into a hook.

5. The amazing intelligence of crows

Comment #181121 by Quine on May 16, 2008 at 12:55 pm

Thanks, Black Wolf, as always the most interesting developments are at the edge of what life can manage. I am sad for the religious folks who close their eyes to something so literally wonderful and magnificent.

6. The amazing intelligence of crows

Comment #181076 by Quine on May 16, 2008 at 11:52 am

I just had the experience of taking care of a friend's CAG parrot for two weeks, and I can tell you the things they can do just fly in the face of our usual ideas of their small brain size. This has caused me to wonder if part of the optimization for flying has caused birds to have neuroanatomy that gets more efficient processing per gram of brain weight than we who are bound to the ground. Anyone know about research on this?

P.S. That would go for bats as well.

7. UC Berkeley is going to court over Evolution website

Comment #181058 by Quine on May 16, 2008 at 11:16 am

Dr B, I don't know all the variations after the Protestants broke away; I was going on the story from the old scriptures that is used to put humans in a lower (bad) position from which jumps the need to be "saved." This degradation is a powerful conditioning aspect so as to make the mumbo-jumbo being blathered by the preacher seem to have actual value. The doctrine of 'original sin' may be too specific, but I was thinking about this general idea of physical elevation above the animal kingdom, yet spiritual degradation, that are both washed away by the knowledge of evolution.

P.S.

Catholics accept both original sin and evolution. For them, the talking snake story is allegorical.

IMHO, it is easier for them to tell the sheeple that, theologically, black is white than to fight the evidence of evolution.

8. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #181045 by Quine on May 16, 2008 at 10:57 am

Rev, thanks for that great link to that piece by Richard Carrier. It eviscerates all these bogus retrospective probability claims. I am going to quote the final paragraph for the benefit of all here:

Theories which make the origin of life plausible are hypotheses like any others, awaiting future research--in fact, generating that research. On the other hand, in the words of Frank Salisbury, "Special creation or a directed evolution would solve the problem of the complexity of the gene, but such an idea has little scientific value in the sense of suggesting experiments." And the experiments suggested by Salisbury and his colleagues led, in fact, to a simplification of the very problem that vexed Salisbury in 1969. Science, once again, gets somewhere. Creationism gets us nowhere. Coppedge suspected in his day "many evolutionists have avoided such investigations [into the odds against life forming] because they intuitively recognize that it will threaten evolutionary doctrine" (p. 234). Yet scientists hardly avoided the matter at all. Quite to the contrary, while creationists engaged in no actual research for twenty-five years and contributed nothing to our understanding of biology, scientists chewed away at the very problems Salisbury and Coppedge discussed, and solved a great many of them (see Stuart Kauffman, The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution, 1993). That none of them thought to make arbitrary and groundless guesses for the purpose of calculating a useless statistic is a testament to their wisdom, just as it is a testament to the ignorance of those, like Coppedge, who actually do this. We only need consider which has added to our knowledge to see who is making better use of their time.

9. UC Berkeley is going to court over Evolution website

Comment #181027 by Quine on May 16, 2008 at 10:15 am

As Sally Luxmoore says, 'original sin' is the key point that cannot be undermined because then the whole house of cards falls. Evolution shows a continuous natural history with no sudden point when humans were "elevated" above the animal kingdom. Those who want to keep religion and evolution have to play the all too human trick of holding conflicting ideas to be true in the same brain. It is just what we do.

10. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #180668 by Quine on May 15, 2008 at 1:43 pm

You know, if they can just get the aliens to tithe, it would put the Vatican Bank on the galactic financial front page; think how big the Pope's hat would be after that!

11. UC Berkeley is going to court over Evolution website

Comment #180663 by Quine on May 15, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Given the record of the Ninth Circuit, I do not see how they are going to rule against UC. If they did, the Church of the FSM could go after UC on the whole global warming v. pirates doctrine.

12. The Neural Buddhists

Comment #180607 by Quine on May 15, 2008 at 10:12 am

Comment #180450 by njwong

If our brain wiring were thwacked for whatever reason, our blemished brain might create an illusion so realistic (e.g. an epiphanic experience) that no external party will convince us that what we have experienced isn't real. However, since our brains also control logic thinking, even rational thinking will be skewed. If that is the case, no amount of persuasion or evidence by others will convince us otherwise of the delusion that our blemished brain has formed.

And therein lies the rub. So, Saul/Paul has this fit on the road to Damascus and is transformed into someone, who, so completely believes his vision that all external tests by all he meets indicate that he is speaking the truth. Tests of torture and fear of death do not turn him from the path, so he must be right, and we should throw down our worldly ways and follow him. There is nothing so dangerous as the followers of a true prophet.

P.S. Thanks for the V. S. Ramachandran link. If you google around a bit you will find more of his recent things that continue in this line (as I did in this post).

13. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #180582 by Quine on May 15, 2008 at 8:42 am

Does anyone else notice the following troll behavior:

(1) Go get questions and answers about evolution.
(2) Throw away the correct answers and write in bogus sound-alikes
(3) Present the above and declare that it does not work
(4) Sit back and laugh as those attempting to help do the job of explaining the correct answers
(5) Tell everyone that it is still nonsense
(6) go to (1)

14. The Neural Buddhists

Comment #180405 by Quine on May 14, 2008 at 8:03 pm

RM:

Quine - thank you for that most useful and enlightening link.
May I make so bold as to share my thoughts with you as they develop and evolve instead of waiting for the conclusion? If that is inappropriate here, tell me and I'll stop.

I am willing to answer some things but you have to understand that your prior record has removed your presumption of innocence, and thrown the rest of us into the domain of the "fool me twice" admonition. Please understand why we will be careful.

You said: "your internal subjective experiences are not useful for us no matter how real they seem to you." And I replied that this was my "hard problem".
But I am wondering if I did not reply a little too quickly. Certainly, what you say is intuitively "felt" to be correct. The knee-jerk reaction (well, my knee-jerk reaction at least) is, "Well, of course, that's logical."
But if we take that a little further, does that mean that none of my subjective experiences have any relevance whatsoever for people with whom I might wish to communicate? If I admit that, then notions of empathy or even projection would have to be abandoned. And even if the expression, "I know how you feel," can never be totally true, it can often be sufficiently true to permit varying degrees of understanding between two people. So, no, I can not agree that all my "internal, subjective experiences" are always completely useless for other people.

My statement was in the context of what establishes external truth. Yes, you can tell people "what it is like" for you, and it may be true for you. There are many times and situations in which this is the most important thing. Theological ontology is not one of them.

Beyond the possibility of vast differences between your "qualia" and mine, at some level, there are obvious similarities, some common points of reference.
The only question that remains to be answered on that point (and it is far from being a negligible one) is "How can I distinguish between the areas of overlap, and the areas that are unique to one single human being?"
(When I was ten years old, my intellectual 15 year-old sister used to taunt me with things like, "Do not do unto others as you would have them do unto you - they might have different tastes.")

Which is why it is better to start from the position of not doing unto others what you would not want done unto you (like religious indoctrination) until you get some idea of what they would like.

The second point, which is so huge that I failed to notice it when reading your post, is this : my epiphany experience did not occur as a result of another person's internal, subjective experience. And yes, the "temporary brain infarction" explanation could work very well here. Maybe a few deep-breathing exercises would have made it all go away. Maybe Saul of Tarsus had an epileptic fit. But are temporary brain infarctions and epileptic fits life-changing?

Sometimes, but it has not been long enough to say in your case.

Could a brain infarction make me perceive so many things differently? Could it open to me to a greater sensation of love - given and received? But that is not the point. For the moment, at least. The point is that nobody told me that I could have the experience of God the way I did. Nobody else's internal, subjective experience procured it for me. So why should I worry about the usefulness of my internal, subjective experience for other people?

You do not have to worry; it is not about us. You might worry if self delusion has set in, but that may not be a bad thing depending on how it impacts your life.

Something else is going on here. If you have never, ever tasted salt, there is no way I could describe the taste of "saltiness" to you. You could only discover it for yourself. If you have never stood on the parapet of a 90 metre high bridge, and felt the pure terror of throwing yourself into the void, even though you've paid good money to have someone attach you to an elastic rope, then I could never find adequate words to communicate that sensation to you. (and, yes, I've done that!) As I said, I haven't finished thinking this one through yet. Thank you for bearing with me thus far. I sense that "Measured empathy and controlled projection" will become important notions here. And, without wishing to spark off an avalanche of insults, I must include this idea, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God"

Yes, your description of the personal subjectivity of tasting salt is exemplary of the isolation we must each live with. Just as your physical body presents other limitations, you cannot directly experience what it is "like" to be someone else. Thus we have the expressions of art and music (your strong suite) to help us with an approximation of transferring this "likeness." We (sociopaths notwithstanding) are assisted by mirror neurons which pick up the "other" from cues and add to our subjective feelings. All of this is an important part of our emotional lives, but does not, impact on what really does or does not objectively exist.

Bottom line: the study of qualia is part of trying to understand consciousness but establishes nothing supernatural. It has been tried for decades; it is a dry hole.

15. The Neural Buddhists

Comment #180364 by Quine on May 14, 2008 at 4:52 pm

I would love to here MPhils take on the qualia thing.

Go read Quining Qualia to be ready in case he does. However, I suspect he won't bother.

16. The Neural Buddhists

Comment #180357 by Quine on May 14, 2008 at 4:42 pm

I sometimes think that if God appeared before a group of scientists and did a demonstration of creating a universe for them, or even just a humble star, the reactions would likely be: "Can you do that again, please, a little more slowly?" or "Where have you published your notes, and how can I get hold of a copy?" or "Now can you show us how you did that?"

Exactly so. We have plenty of examples of magicians and mindreaders etc. who pull off amazing things as long as they do not have to do it twice under controlled conditions. You present the example from the view of the knowledge of the deity, but the audience does not have that knowledge, and is trying to see if it is justified to infer it. That is where we are all starting from, and your internal subjective experiences are not useful for us no matter how real they seem to you.

17. The Neural Buddhists

Comment #180333 by Quine on May 14, 2008 at 3:49 pm

Hi RM,

Just so you know, things like personal spiritual experiences are, at best, peripheral to the "hard problem" of the construction of a third person description of first person subjectivity. They go in the the bag with experiences while on mind altering drugs, stroke, temporal lobe epilepsy and other brain damage. These are more complex than the "easy problems" of general perception, reflex association, memory etc., but you have to have the base of first person subjectivity before you get to the altered experience.

Of course, you know that from our viewpoint a temporary brain infarction on your part is almost infinitely more probable than your actual visitation by supernatural beings. Also, you have been on this web site back in the Fleabytes days so you already know how this goes: the believer keeps being pushed back by questions and demands for evidence until s/he gets to the "I believe it because I believe it" point, and then goes away. What do you expect to be any different?

18. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #180196 by Quine on May 14, 2008 at 11:03 am

Or am I delving into dangerous philosophical waters here?

Come on in, the water's fine. Here, start with a quick intro to Teleological Notions in Biology. You have to remember that the "choices" for adaptation only look like that in retrospect. As they are actually happening, anything goes, but only a few things work out (pass on genes).

However, the water gets deep when you get to the origin of the Universe. We see only the one we are in, and do not know if there are others, or other possibilities. I contend that from within the system we cannot know if the initial conditions were random (i.e. it is not a falsifiable proposition). I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

19. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #180151 by Quine on May 14, 2008 at 9:25 am

This could be the basis for a remake of To Serve Man, except this time the aliens have been listening to Christian radio and fake the Second Coming. The central shot is lines of the faithful being levitated off the tops of mountains, but in this story, the rapture misses the pearly gates and goes straight to the BBQ.


P.S. When confronted later the aliens explain, "It was their idea."

20. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #179840 by Quine on May 13, 2008 at 9:16 pm

Marc, check out the Sagan video I posted in this comment. I think you will like it.

21. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #179820 by Quine on May 13, 2008 at 8:15 pm

Thanks, dot, loved it.

22. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #179784 by Quine on May 13, 2008 at 6:16 pm

Aliens from a world without sin??? Wow! We could turn our whole planet into the galactic Las Vegas and make every human fabulously wealthy!!

"What happens on Earth, stays on Earth."

23. Vatican: It's OK to believe in aliens

Comment #179723 by Quine on May 13, 2008 at 3:11 pm

So, are space aliens subject to Original Sin? If so, they are going to be pretty pissed to hear about it, given that they don't even descend from the A&E on this planet that caused the Big Fall.

24. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #179686 by Quine on May 13, 2008 at 1:59 pm

Here is a lovely video by Carl Sagan on the relation of artificial selection to natural selection. It is old, but stands up amazingly well in the current debate.

25. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179538 by Quine on May 13, 2008 at 11:27 am

Comment #179307 by Bonzai:

I have no idea what "materialism" or "non materialism" really means because "matter" is a loose concept whose meaning changes with time. Not until E=Mc^2 and probably the atomic bomb many "materialistic" philosophers argued dogmatically that energy was not "matter" but a property of matter, just like being red, say (or reflecting light of a certain wavelength under room temperature). The more sophisticated philosophers might argue that potential energy was just a book keeping device introduced to preserve conservation of energy and thus it might just reflect the way "our brains process information" blah blah blah followed by big words. It just shows you that kind of word games don't really advance knowledge in any real way.

Who are you talking about? Are you pulling some philosophers out of the past as straw men and then beating them up about what wasn't known when they lived? Yes, we are stuck with some obsolete aspects of the term "materialism" and there is encroachment from so called "economic materialism" such that modern philosophers have generally switched over to "physicalism" to keep it straight. No big deal.

With regard to dualism. It is interesting to observe that it is tacitly assumed by people like Dawkins and Pinker when they argue that we are able to overide the 'selfish gene' imperative without saying exactly how. Pinker puts it rather bluntly when talking about his childless lifestyle, he said basically he told his genes to take a hike. Where does his "free will" of telling his genes to fuck off come from? Now there is a way out of this provided you recognize civilization has a "real" existence above the biological level, in other words dualism can be overcome in this context only at the cost of rejecting reductionism (actually pan selectionism).

What kind of dualism are you talking about? I thought the discussion was about substance dualism beyond physicalism. What kind of reductionism are you talking about? Do we have to reject reductionism because we cannot deduce your fingerprints or retinal scan data from your DNA?

26. Fleabytes

Comment #179480 by Quine on May 13, 2008 at 10:12 am

Hi Steve,

I think I see the path ahead of you as you stitch Physics and Philosophy back together after centuries of separation. Yes, the first step is to confront those who think that thinking itself involves some kind of magic. You may have noticed that I like to ask when in the process of evolution did the magic start, and when in the development of each individual human does the magic start?

Also, given that a false premise implies any conclusion, the theologians can go anywhere they want, and construct any kind of castle in the sky. If you hold them at the ontological doorstep they get nowhere.

So, it's good work on your blog, and I look forward to reading it as you go on.

-Q

27. Americans pray at the pump for cheaper petrol

Comment #179158 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 7:46 pm

Someone gimme an 'amen'!!!

28. The Stupidity of Dignity

Comment #179155 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 7:39 pm

But, wait, without dignity wouldn't everyone just laugh at the Pope's hat?

29. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179114 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 4:14 pm

Toad, relax; take a few deep breaths; here, read about the Golden Hemorrhoids to cheer up.

P.S. If anyone needs any more cheering up, just look at this perfectly pleasing preposterous Pentecostal Pig Panties piece PZ purposely pokingly posted.

30. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179068 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 1:28 pm

Artful, Jim Jones is a great example, what with parents forcing cyanide Kool-Aid down the throats of their own children. Why did these people do that? Why did they believe him?

In the middle ages the Church of Rome effectively threw down the Bible and declared that apostolic provenance trumped scripture. Later, Protestants would focus on this to (in name anyway) regain scripture. The joke on them is that back in the second century before the formal establishment of the NT, the pronouncements of someone who had gotten the word from a first century preacher were given standing.

The joke continues because neither you nor I nor anyone else knows "how Jesus treated people." We have no direct documentation. We have a collection of stories that reflect the writings of those second century people who had been given an oral recounting of things they had not themselves witnessed.

Look at the followers of Islam and Hinduism and the Sikhs and Mormons and JWs and Shinto and all the other religions on earth. They teach their children to believe things that cannot be substantiated by evidence. Part of that teaching is always, "we are good, and they are bad" and the bad get punished. You may fool yourself into thinking that your faith has made it to some kind of higher ground by leaving the punishment to the "next life" but the inherent fear of that is still punishment here and now.


Book recommendation: The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings

31. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #179041 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 12:38 pm

... writ large.

Writ by an iron age nutcase on 'shrums in little scribbles as if to be "large."

P.S. Book recommendation: A History of the End of the World

32. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179030 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 12:14 pm

Christian parents in my experience do not subject their kids to threats of eternal damnation unless they behave in a particular way.

They often just let their clerics do it for them. I have a relative who is the father of a young boy. The dad (not a believer) got divorced and the mom remarried into a Christian family. The boy was then sent to religious indoctrination where he was given the explicit word that his unbelieving father was going to spend eternity in horrible agony burning in hell. This caused the boy, who loves his father, very substantial psychological suffering and other emotional development problems.

Artful, you just can't dodge the fact that this is happening to children around the world through the adherence to old myths and new age swindles. Go research the origins of your religious texts and traditions. Go look at how people can be swept up in the self propagation of cults. Just go look, and perhaps at some point, you will see.

33. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #179008 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 11:35 am

So, Artful, did substance dualism exist back in the days of Homo erectus? If so, what matter, exactly, did the non-matter interact with? If not, when did the non-matter start interacting with the matter? Where was that first interaction and how was it chosen?

34. Now this is how to critique Ken Ham's creation 'museum'

Comment #178998 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 11:19 am

I like this video very much because it flies in the face of the idea that science is done in some far away ivory tower where there is a big conspiracy to lie to the people about evolution. This guy and his boy go outside and just pick it up off the ground. Priceless!

I have used the link to this video in the past to try to get folks to open their eyes, and suggest that others here do so as well.

35. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178989 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 10:53 am

It has been interesting to watch the changing nature of the discussion on these threads over the last year or so. It reminds me of a biological system developing an immune response. Lately, we do not see so many come here and spew forth scripture as if the words had magic power; those who try find out quickly that we have heard it all before, and have posters much better educated in exegesis than they, and find out that ridicule heaped upon their "magic words" causes them significant cognitive dissonance not easily relieved by a soupçon of justification from their imaginary friend.

Now I see we have developed antibodies to the next level of attack, tried and true (not) theological arguments. Last year, many of our infidels did not know the difference between so called economic materialism and actual philosophical materialism. Today, when some believer tries to pass off substance dualism, they are stung by philosophical antibodies in a gang-up. I can't help but be pleased.

This brings me to the issue of C. S. Lewis as we saw earlier in this thread (also, the reliance upon Lewis by Francis Collins still irritates me). I know Hitch went after him a bit in his book, but I would like to find a good solid philosophical drubbing that we can drop like a wet blanket over these folks with their burning fervor as to the proof of the transcendent. It is not something that a current professional philosopher would likely consider worth spending any time doing (the actual refutation), and I don't see myself spending much time searching and gathering what has been done, but if someone already knows where this is, I think it would be helpful to have.

36. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178764 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 2:28 am

I forget which female comedian talked about her upbringing in a house where her mother believed that there was only one book, and that was called Matthew.

37. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178754 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 2:11 am

I am finding it tough going.

It is short, but dense with thought. Thankfully, short enough to be able to reread a few times so more sinks in.

38. Evolution: What is 'Natural'?

Comment #178742 by Quine on May 12, 2008 at 1:46 am

Well, it seems to have gotten much more difficult for the faithful to float the usual theological circularity around here.

39. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #178635 by Quine on May 11, 2008 at 7:36 pm

txpiper:

-evolution is completely dependant on mutations as the source of new genetic material

-mutations are relatively rare as normal is the norm

-when mutations do happen, they are usually inconsequential

-the most likely effect, if there are any, effects will be deleterious

All of the above are true. Deleterious mutations are selected against and do not spread to dominate the gene pool (that is the definition of "deleterious" in evolution). Beneficial mutations, however rare, are preserved and compound upon themselves to produce the complexity we see.

You have now become repetitious, and I am not going there with you. You did not answer the question I asked about the positive mutations in the clock simulation. If you start reading this thread from the beginning you will find others who tried to jerk us around to no avail. From me, it is strike three for you.

40. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178477 by Quine on May 11, 2008 at 1:35 pm

Nairb, in her book Infidel Ayaan Hirsi Ali tells about getting the Dutch officials to start counting these killing so they could even find out that they had a problem (which they did). What is the French policy of counting and reporting?

41. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178460 by Quine on May 11, 2008 at 1:05 pm

Nairb, do you think the tolerance (if not support) of these killings, as expressed by the community, is also "not representative"?

42. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #178416 by Quine on May 11, 2008 at 11:28 am

According to the theory, mutations are random events and are unrelated to, and therefore unresponsive to, environmental influences.

Individual mutations are random, but the rate of mutation is not independent of environmental conditions such as radiation and mutagenic chemicals. Also, remember a mutation is a DNA change that is not fixed by the natural repair capability. Things like malnutrition can hinder that repair, and thus, increase the net mutation rate.

txpiper, I feel that at this point I can't do much to help you. Please read the post from Calilasseia slowly and carefully a few times over, and go read the references. I hope that you are able to come to understand that the ToE has withstood these attacks from both within and outside the scientific community, and stands as one of, if not the, greatest intellectual achievements of humans ever. Good luck.

43. I Am Evolution

Comment #178387 by Quine on May 11, 2008 at 10:39 am

I have said this before, but this is a good place to reiterate that when people ask me if I believe in evolution, I answer, "I don't have to believe in evolution; I can check it."

44. 'My daughter deserved to die for falling in love'

Comment #178384 by Quine on May 11, 2008 at 10:32 am

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. Voltaire.

Deep sadness, but not so much surprise.

45. Richard Dawkins interviewed by John Humphrys on Cardinal Murphy O'Connor

Comment #178344 by Quine on May 11, 2008 at 9:26 am

I turned on the radio this morning just in time to catch a "This I Believe" essay on NPR. Many of these are very good, but too often filled with unjustifiable statements of faith, so imagine my pleasant surprise to hear one about evolution from a practicing paleoanthropologist, Holly Dunsworth. She was great, and I recommend her to all here for a breath of fresh air after all this "evolution is just faith" on the radio rubbish.

[Edit: I see Josh just put up a link to this on the front page.]

46. Church of Scotland mediators to quell disputes

Comment #178339 by Quine on May 11, 2008 at 9:10 am

A "sheep look up" moment?

When structures built upon hypocrisy start cracking, they tend to collapse quickly.

47. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #178061 by Quine on May 10, 2008 at 11:28 am

txpiper, the mutation rates have been carefully measured and modeled to establish that the changes we see in the fossil record do match the expectation considering both that mutation is relatively infrequent, and that beneficial mutation is rare. The key concept is that the beneficial is kept and passed on while the detrimental self limits. Evolution itself works on the rates of mutation. There are organisms that have much more DNA repair capabilities than others because they live in environments with high causes of DNA damage. However, organisms that have very high resistance to change by mutation, are in danger of failing to be able to track the changes in their environments; some balance has to be maintained.

While we are on this, if you have not read The Selfish Gene you need to do so to get the concept of the "gene's eye view." We tend to see the outward form of changes in animals, but evolution is actually working on the succession of gene frequencies in a population. What this means is that a mutation may be bad for the life of the individual, but if it promotes its gene frequency in the population of descendants, it will be selected.

For example, a mutation that shortens an animal's life span may be selected if it also causes that animal to have more viable offspring. There are fish who die after their one and only spawning; many forms of spiders are eaten by their one and only brood of hatchlings. Also, remember all those mutations in birds that just make them more sexy but have high cost in maintenance of plumage (like keeping that Ferrari going in the city).

48. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177874 by Quine on May 9, 2008 at 9:40 pm

txpiper, I used the cancer example to address your idea of just how rare mutation is; very rare from a single cell viewpoint, but because organisms have so many cells, not so rare at that viewpoint.

On the more general point, cancer has been recognized as evolution in microcosm. It takes several independent mutations for a cell to go neoplastic (cancerous). We would never expect (probability too low) to see these happen in a single cell at a single time, but what we do see is successive mutations over time and number of generations (divisions). Natural selection comes in because mutations that kill the cell stop the progression, and mutations that make the cell look too different from normal cells are taken out by the immune system.

However, if the mutations cause the cell to loose replication control and become "undifferentiated" enough to stop doing what they normally do and start moving around, and still fly under the radar of the immune system, from its view, it has adapted by mutation and selection to an eco niche where it and its daughters can grow and prosper (of course, it does not know about killing the host, you). So, people who are exposed to radiation or chemicals that promote DNA breaks or copy errors, make a population that has higher rates of cancer because their cells have more chances at breaking out of their constraints.

The "new information" in the DNA of cancer cells does not come from anywhere in your parents (although they can pass you something close so you are in danger). It comes from mutation and natural selection over perhaps thousands of generations of cells, in your one lifetime.

Want to fight cancer? Make sure kids are educated about evolution.

49. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177836 by Quine on May 9, 2008 at 7:56 pm

Yes, Diacanu, but he is, actually, right about a theory having to stand on its own power. It doesn't help his basic lack of understanding; it just deflects Rev's poke at him, and saves him from having to actually do any thinking.

50. Lying for Jesus?

Comment #177829 by Quine on May 9, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Mutations are very rare, that is why we all do not die of cancer at an early age even though we have a (big exponential number) of cells that replicate (copy DNA) day in and day out for several decades. However, cancer does happen (and all kinds of benign tumors) because mutation does happen. The bigger the population, the more cases of cancer because there are more of those (big exponential number) of cells doing it.

Mutation happens, nature selects, we evolve; get over it.