Hi Dan, Thanks for the article, it was interesting. My first thought was that the way the press presents this, seems to say that what these researchers are conjecturing is fact. Often the media designates truth to science despite the controversy surrounding certain theories. In this sense, the article should be read as a possibility that some scientists are considering. Once genes are thought to be only in animals, then when they are found in other species, the notion is that something has been discovered. More likely, the hypothesis that certain genes are only found in animals is incorrect. Take for example the case of the Black Swan (which Marsha is now reading about). The accepted fact was that all swans were white. But, somewhere in Australia (I think) a black swan was discovered. There was great excitement in the scientific community since this was so unusual, based on accepted theory at the time. In actuality, there was nothing unusual about it at all, it was just that the original theory was wrong. So, scientists set up theories, and are then amazed when they find something outside of the theory. The platypus used by Pirsig was a good example of this phenomenon in terms of the rigidness of science.
The other thought was that this is typical of scientists who only look at one side of evolution, that is the genetic make-up. They completely dismiss the process of natural selection, that is, the environment. I liken this to a push-pull existence, genes push and environment pulls. The reason a species expresses certain characteristics is that the environment is letting it do so. In other words, if the environment of earth was very different, animals would look very different, but could have the same DNA. It is this complex interplay of that within with that without that is not discussed. To do so, would require us to understand why the environment changes in the way that it does; this side of the equation is much more complex, as we have seen from the global warming frenzy. As it turns out, over 95% of the human genome does not code for proteins. That is, we do not know what that 95% is for. This means that there is possibly an enormous reservoir for what the human can evolve into. In other words, we have the potential to be very different if the environment so dictates, without changing our DNA sequence. The genetic sequence actually means very little. It would be like knowing the sequence of all the letters of Lila, and nothing more. Meaning is extracted from the DNA in a very complex way, in the same way that meaning in Lila is extracted. It is actually worse in the genome, since this would mean that the vast majority of Lila would be indecipherable. This indecipherability is often called "nonsense DNA". It may be nonsense to the scientist, but I am sure the species does not think so. So, it is fun to read these science articles, but ascribing them as fact may not be appropriate. Often I warn about Scientism as presented by the press Why did the Times choose this particular thing out of the millions of research topics going on? Who knows. One final note: I used to have a side job as a gate keeper for deciding which articles to include in certain sections of a database. This database was then sold as a resource to researchers who would assume that it was factual and complete. Sometimes I had days when I was tired. My selection and population of the data base was different on those days. Also, I had to do this very fast. What scientists thought of as an important resource was derived from my subjectivity. Cheers, Mark On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 2:32 PM, Dan Glover <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello everyone > >> [Arlo] >> You're saying amoebas "choose" (via free will) to become "more complex" and >> turn into mice? Is that correct? Did they have a "mouse plan" in mind? Or >> was >> that something that just happened? >> > > John: > > Well the way you say it, it almost sounds silly, but basically, yeah. > That's the way I think of it. Only the "mouse plan" was writ large in the > design and construction of the whole universe, which in some unknown way, > needed mouseness and thus brought it about through what is called in human > terms, a "cause and effect process". It is the whole which calls forth and > defines the particulars, in my worldview. > > Hi Arlo and John > > A couple weeks ago, this article ran in the NYT... not sure if anyone > else read it (Platt was always good about reading the Times) but it > seems related to this discussion: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/15/science/15evolve.html?ref=science > > Dan comments: > > Of particular interest is this snip: > > "Surprisingly, they’ve found that a lot of the genetic equipment for > building an animal was in place long before the animal kingdom even > existed." > > Dan comments: > > What the researchers seem to be saying is that the blueprints for > animals were in place long before animals. So one possible answer to > the old conundrum of what came first: chicken or egg, might be > answered now: the chicken came first! > > Thoughts? > > Dan > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
