Sunday 31 May 2009

DAWKINS-DAVIES-ORIGINS

DARWIN GONE DIGITAL BY GENES


////////////TIME,VARIATION RANDOM,NS NON RANDOM


/////////////PARTICULATE DIGITAL INHERITANCE-GENE


///////////////GENES IS LIKE A COMPUTR TAPE-QUATERNARY,NOT BINARY


///////////////CODED ACCOUNT OF ENV OF OUR ANCESTORS


///////////////DARWIN WAS A BIT UNMATHEMATICAL



////////////////A possible (albeit probably unlikely) link between the lack of evidence of aliens (so far) and the kind of mechanisms of abiogenesis we should be considering.

A great explanation of why Lamarkism won't work for complex organs.

Why proteins were almost certainly not the original replicators.

This really shows what a great producer of ideas Richard i



///////////////ABIOGENESIS-NEEDS RESEARCH



//////////////////RD points out that eyes have evolved 40 times, intelligence only once. But then, whoever's the first intelligence on the planet is clearly only going to see one instance of intelligence around them. And the long-term effect of humanity on the planet is probably gonna prevent intelligence arising in other species, just by our generally being in the way. So even if intelligence is a relatively discoverable trick, I reckon that on any planet it's first come first served. (Unless perhaps it arose separately on isolated continents in a shortish timescale without seafaring...)



////////////////////AGRICULTR,MICROBIOLOGY USE DARWINIAN



////////////////BIOLF-MAXIMISE SURVIVAL OF THEIR DNA



////////////////ORIGIN OF MATTER AND LIFE



/////////////////ORIGINAL SELF REPLICATING MOLECULE-
NOT AS COMPLEX AS DNA

MUCH SIMPLER UNIT OF HEREDITY-TO HAVE BEEN COME FROM ABIOGENESIS




/////////////////EDGE=
"A fascinating chronicle of the big, new ideas that are keeping young scientists up at night."
— Daniel Gilbert

"A preview of the ideas you're going to be reading about in ten years."
— Steven Pinker



//////////////////DNA-mRNA-AMINO ACIDS-PROTEIN-ENZYME


////////////////IS RNA THE BRIDGE-REPLICATION AND CATALYTIC



////////////////SO ?RNA WORLD



/////////////////.........On earth, we only observe 1 instance of evolved sophisticated (human equivalent) language/intelligence, yet many instances of convergently evolved sight/hearing/flight/etc. However, maybe the former is a phenomenon that tends to happen late in a planets evolutionary history and we humans just happen to live in a time when only one has recently happened so far. Sight/hearing/senses deal with a brain processing information so maybe they're building blocks necessary to bootstrap more sophisticated intelligence at a later time (so perhaps we have a sort of time bias in observing its rate of occurance).

On earth, in the present at least, we can see genes for human equivalent brains are successful given their wide replication in the bodies of earth dominating humans. And given that whatever replicators happen to be most successful tend to thrive and dominate replication, perhaps we can expect convergent human equivalent intelligence to be a norm on other planets, given enough time (just an idea/speculation).



///////////////////FERMI PARADOX-WHERE IS EVERYBODY? NO RADIOSIGNAL FROM ALIENS YET



///////////////////........hat inappropriate first question from the crowd for some reason reminded me that this whole religion debate really is nothing more than a distraction from the far more interesting, and, of course, vitally important, business of science.

After that wonderful talk, I almost groaned at the first questioner's attempt to change the subject, and was glad when they decided to set it aside.




//////////////////NATR EVOLN CANNOT LOOK AHEAD


////////////////EVOLN WORKS WITH WHAT IS AVAILABLE NOW



///////////////////......Dawkins has a lot more to offer when he talks about interesting science than repeating himself ad nauseum about religion.



RDF=


/////////////////////NS DONT HAVE LOOKAHEAD CAPACITY



////////////////////BUT EVOLN HAS EVOLVED INTELLIGENCE TO LOOK AHEAD



/////////////////////////NS CANNOT SELECT GENE IN CAMBRIAN WHICH WILL BENEFIT IT IN THE CRETACEOUS



///////////////////,...........Part of the talk dealt with the question of whether Lamarckian evolution might work in some alternative environment. Dawkins did not think so.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that it may possible for Lamarckain evolution to take place in a world of robots - where baby robots can be born with the acquired memories of its parent(s). Would that actually be an example of a Lamarckian process, or am I missing something?


//////////////////INTELLIGENCE AND LANGUAGE EVOLVED ONLY ONCE,NOT IN SAME CATEGORY AS EYES OR WINGS

HARDER THAN FLYING OR SEEING


//////////////////DAWKINS VS GOULD-You and Stephen Jay Gould recently debated the theory of evolution before an audience of a thousand people in Oxford. What was the nature of the debate?

A: I advocate the gene as the level at which natural selection acts, while he advocates a variety of higher levels. Gould wants to be catholic in his approach, while I want to be rigorous. Natural selection has to work on something that's self-replicating, and your individual organism is not a unit of selection. The debate was cordial. It was hard-hitting. But we both went away feeling just the way we did when we came in. (p. 127)


/////////////////DUTCH FAMINE-EPIGENETICS


This famine was unique as it took place in a modern, developed and literate country, albeit suffering under the privations of occupation and war. The well-documented experience has allowed scientists to measure the effects of famine on human health.
The Dutch Famine Birth Cohort Study, carried out by the departments of Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Gynecology and Obstetrics and Internal Medicine of the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam, in collaboration with the MRC Environmental Epidemiology Unit of the University of Southampton in Britain, found that the children of pregnant women exposed to famine were more susceptible to diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, microalbuminuria and other health problems.[3]


Dutch Food ration coupons from WW II
Moreover, the children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children grew up and had children those children were also smaller than average.
This data suggested that the famine experienced by the mothers caused some kind of epigenetic changes that were passed down to the next generation.
The discovery of the cause of Coeliac disease may also be partly attributed to the Dutch famine. With wheat in very short supply there was an improvement of a children's ward of Coeliac patients. Stories tell of the first precious supplies of bread being given specifically to the (no longer) sick children, prompting an immediate relapse. Thus in the 1940s the Dutch paediatrician Dr Willem Dicke[4] was able to corroborate his previously researched hypothesis that wheat intake was aggravating Coeliac disease.[5] Later Dicke went on to prove his theory.
Audrey Hepburn spent her childhood in the Netherlands during the famine. She suffered anaemia, respiratory illnesses and oedema as a result, and her clinical depression later in life has been attributed to malnutrition.[6]
Subsequent research on the children who were affected in the second trimester of their mother's pregnancy, found an increased incidence of schizophrenia in these children.[7] Also increased among them were the rates of schizotypal personality and neurological defects.[8]


/////////////////////NS WILL GRAB THE GENE IF IT INCR CHANCE OF SURVIVAL



/////////////////////ust a minute on "Darwin". No hesitation, repetition, or deviation.

Bzzzzt!
(Kenneth Ham doing camp Kenneth Williams impersonation) "Deviation!"
(Nicholas Parsons) "He did *not* deviate, Mr Ham"
(KH) "I meant that he IS a deviation!"


/////////////LUCA WAS NOT FIRST LIVING THING OF ALL
LUCA LIVED 0.5 BN YRS AFTER FLTA


////////////////...A giraffe doesn't stretch its vertebrae when stretching its neck. Simple biomechanics show that the muscles in the neck execute pressure on the joints and bones, not a tendency to elongate. This is another example of what Richard put forward that an organ isn't neccessarily improved by using it.



//////////////////LAMARCKIAN GIRAFFE


///////////////////EPIGENETICS IS NOT LAMARCKIAN


///////////////



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