Evolution is very obvious that is not true at all

[Vinegar]

deleted duplicate-see next post

 

[Vinegar]

Iucaspa: back to the main subject, I do not begrudge your "nit-picking", especially as I am not a professional scientist, as I suspect you yourself are, however I did indicate I was attempting to keep it a simple explanation. I also appreciate your quotation from the source of modern evolutionary theory, which I think in style alone stands up well against any version of the Bible, owing to the elegance of expression that was one of Darwin's special talents. I wonder if any of our creationist friends might secretly agree?

 

[lucaspa]

You can hardly say that Saddam has learned his lesson when he still killed and tortured his own people all the way up to his removal.

Killing his own people is different from invading others. Apples and oranges. The lesson was not to invade his neighbors. And that was your original point for going to war: to protect us. You said Hussein was a danger to us. Now you acknowledge that he is not.

BTW, remember the history of the US in lynching blacks? Torturing and killing our own people. Would that have justified invasion by Britain or Iran to stop it?

Just yesterday I heard a report from Amnesty International on the network of gulags the US has set up to hold suspected terrorists. And torture them. Is that enough to justify Russia invading us?

The way you test the validity of a criteria or idea, dstauff, is to take it out of the narrow area you are using it and apply it to identical or similar situations and see if it still works. If it doesn't, like I showed above, then the criteria is a bad one. In this case, invading Iraq because Hussein mistreated his own citizens is a shaky criteria at best. At worst, it justifies other countries invading us.

 

[lucaspa]

Iucaspa: back to the main subject, I do not begrudge your "nit-picking", especially as I am not a professional scientist, as I suspect you yourself are, however I did indicate I was attempting to keep it a simple explanation.

Sometimes important points are lost in "simplicity". For instance, in emphasizing speciation you lost that getting new species involves getting new designs (which really was the point you were trying to make ) Simplicity often means using simple words, not dumbing down the concepts.

I'll give you another example of the errors of "simplicity" in evolution. Evolution is often "simply" defined as "a change in allele frequencies over time." Ernst Mayr objects to that and I agree:
"No Darwinian I know questions the fact that the processes of organic evolution are consistent with the laws of the physical sciences, but it makes no sense to say that biological evolution has been "reduced" to physical laws. Biological evolution is the result of specific processes that impinge on specific systems, the explanation of which is meaningful only at the level of complexity of those processes and those systems. And the classical theory of evolution has not been reduced to a "molecular theory of evolution," an assertion based on such reductionist definitions of evolution as "a change in gene frequencies in natural populations." This reductionist definition omits the crucial aspects of evolution: changes in diversity and adaptation. (Once I gave a lump of sugar to a racoon in a zoo. He ran with it to his water basin and washed it vigorously until there was nothing left of it. No complex system should be taken apart to the extent that nothing of significance is left.)" Ernst Mayr, Evolution, Scientific American 239: 47-55, Sept. 1978.

I also appreciate your quotation from the source of modern evolutionary theory, which I think in style alone stands up well against any version of the Bible, owing to the elegance of expression that was one of Darwin's special talents. I wonder if any of our creationist friends might secretly agree?

I suspect that most people find Darwin's language stilted and difficult to read. Ironically, I suspect creationists are among them. They view the Bible as "elegant" because of their presupposition that it is "the Word of God". Of course, they are wrong about the latter. Jesus is the Word. Not the Bible.

 

[Vinegar]

In this case, invading Iraq because Hussein mistreated his own citizens is a shaky criteria at best. At worst, it justifies other countries invading us.

Then it was OK for the world to let 800,000 Tutsis be hacked to death, and the Jews of Germany to be gagged, bagged and gassed by the trainload?

I'm for invading America and civilising it. Who would you prefer as a liberating force? The Swedes, perhaps? Send in the masseurs....

 

[jb-creation]

Getting back to science...

In response to lucaspa's attempt to defend the formation of the eye, the light-sensitive spot requires more than simply rhodopsin. It also involves 11-cis-retinal, as well as a number of other factors for proper function. In maintaining the cup shape, dozens of complex proteins are involved. The ball of cells from which the cup will be made will tend to be rounded unless molecular supports hold it in the proper shape.

As to Hox genes, they direct other genes as to where they are to be expressed. They would not likely be responsible for producing the numerous molecules required to attain the cup.

 

[Vinegar]

Iucaspa again: On reductionism, I find myself with a continuing bonnet-buzzing bee about "The Selfish Gene". It appears to me that it is just as valid to consider than selection takes place "at the level of" (for example) an ecosystem, or at multiple "levels" (gene, sets of genes, individual organism, population) across various overlapping species. So much seems to hinge on definition, and the focal point of natural selection, which you have raised in offering refinements to my previous statements about speciation. The thesis of the gene being THE crux of variation also seems to me, whilst extremely useful, also incomplete, not least given the very interdependence of genes with each other, and with the superstructure of DNA.

 

[lucaspa]

Do psychopaths generally change for the better? In intent at least, I think not.

We don't generally arrest or convict on intent, but on actions. In the international arena, a country can have whatever psychopath it wants as ruler as long as that psychopath doesn't threaten his neighbors. Remember Idi Amin? Did we invade to remove his slaughter of his people? The US has even supported some psychopaths, such as Pinochet in Chile. Being a psychopath and being the ruler of a country has never been sufficient for an invasion.

And it wasn't in the case of Iraq! Take a step back and look at the series of rationalizations for war with Iraq. At the beginning, that Hussein oppressed his own people wasn't even mentioned! It was all about WMD. It was only after it was transparent that there were no WMD was the rationalization of Hussein's bad behavior trotted out. And now that it is realized that this is insufficient, we get the refuted claim that Hussein supported Al Queda!

The "containment" of Saddam entailed an oil-for-food program that was corrupt to its core,

You forget 1) the no fly zones, 2) basing of US troops permanently in Kuwait, 3) isolation of Iraq from Russia (which means no spare parts for his military equipment), and 4) maintainence of Kurdistan as a de facto independent state with its own army, clandestinely partly supplied by the US. However, overall the real containment was the devastating defeat in the first Gulf War. Hussein was perfectly aware that his military could not possibly stand up to the US. Whatever he did, he could not push anything to the point where he really got the US angry because he could not possibly resist an invasion. I'm pretty sure this was the major reason he rebuffed Al Queda when they approached him. He knew that all they would do would be make the US angry.

In the days leading up to Bush's war, the former ambassador to Iraq was conveying demands from the Bush administration. According to his book, Hussein capitulated to every demand, including resigning from office. But we went to war anyway.

the bankrolling of Palestinian terrorist missions within Israel.

The Saudis have been doing that for years, yet we never invaded them. BTW, where is the documentation for this?

"Containment" was a failure, a sick farce,

Nonsense. Hussein represented no immediate danger to his neighbors. He had no plans to invade anyone and was content to try to hold onto his personal power.

that it didn't happen before the Twin Towers event (since it would have enabled a quick route into Afghanistan and the Al Qaeda camps and possible prevention of a whole lot of bad stuff),

And you would have had us invade Afghanistan before 9/11? On what pretext? That you have hindsight that 9/11 was going to happen?

[qoute] The benefits?
A net saving of thousands of innocent lives.[/quote]I've been reading the book Thunder Run about the armored thrust into Bagdad that ended the war. With no criticism of the soldiers on the ground (who did their jobs extremely well, but the job itself is horrific), but I don't think you can justify this. The number of innocent lives lost to the US military could easily have been higher than 10 more years of Hussein rule.

The removal of a support base for Palestinian terrorism.

That assumes that the Palestinian fight is "terrorism" and is unjustified. I see you have been swallowing Israeli propaganda.

A re-examination of the role and functions of the United Nations

Not a good thing since the role is that the US does whatever it d-mned well pleases no matter what the UN may say. That makes the world a lot safer place. We are the bad guys now. I don't know about you, but I don't like being the Nazis of the 21st Century and being the ones to decide when we want to go to war in a war of aggression.

The spoiling of French and Russian dirty deals.

As opposed to Halyburton's dirty deals?

A huge expense to the wealth-bloated United States, combined with a realisation of greater international interdependence.
Improved chances for the election of a Democrat President.

LOL!

You forgot one more benefit:
Providing a much closer place for anti-American terrorists to kill Americans than coming to the US. So, all of us in the US can sleep better at nights knowing that we are safer because the terrorists will be gunning for our friends, husbands, siblings in Iraq instead of us!

 

[Physics_guy]

We don't generally arrest or convict on intent, but on actions. In the international arena, a country can have whatever psychopath it wants as ruler as long as that psychopath doesn't threaten his neighbors.

This is an interesting question (although very off-topic here). Should world community simply allow whatever butcher to be in power as long as he doesn't cross any borders? I don't know if I agree with this sentiment, though the alternative seems rife with difficulties such as where to draw the line on intervention. The U.N. is was created in such a way that intervention is extremely difficult - should it be easier? Tough question. What's the line about evil being able to flourish because of good men doing nothing?

By the way, I am not advocating any one particular international conflict here. Just suggesting that maybe our concept of "international law" (which is actually a farce at present) may not be totally moral or practical in an ever more connected world. Of course, a better solution may be hard to find.

 

[Asimov]

This is an interesting question (although very off-topic here). Should world community simply allow whatever butcher to be in power as long as he doesn't cross any borders?

Pretty much, all throughout history people have been faced with oppression by their leaders, and when they had enough of the oppression, rebelled. You can't give a country it's freedom like we did with Iraq, the people have to fight for it themselves, and want freedom.

 

[Physics_guy]

Pretty much, all throughout history people have been faced with oppression by their leaders, and when they had enough of the oppression, rebelled. You can't give a country it's freedom like we did with Iraq, the people have to fight for it themselves, and want freedom.

I think that is pretty simplistic. Due to the force multiply power of modern weaponry, a dictator with control of the armed forces can control a huge population pretty effectively. I don't know if we can simply rely upon internal revolution to solve the problem anymore - some dictators have gotten pretty adept at taking out political opposition (as Saddam did), and a revolution without leaders is dead in the water.

 

[ChristianRanger89]

Evolustists can't get their stories straight then because what I am gettin my stuff from is wrong others that belive in that stuff and another thing how do you know that the theroies are totally correct? There is no evidence that its happening the gorillas still look the same to me humans look the same to me lol. What are we changing into?

 

[USincognito]

Evolustists can't get their stories straight then because what I am gettin my stuff from is wrong others that belive in that stuff and another thing how do you know that the theroies are totally correct? There is no evidence that its happening the gorillas still look the same to me humans look the same to me lol. What are we changing into?

Which "stories" are being conflated CR? That there is some disagreement about the specifics - and very minute specifics at that - there is no denial. Of course there are disagreements in Christianity, to the point where there are 30,000+ denominations. Does that invalidate Christianity? Of course not. The overall message remains coherent and consistent, except for the occasional heretic.

What do you think is happening to gorillas, apart from their likely immenent extinction? LOL Do you know anything about the evidence for human evolution? LOL Did you see the skulls photo I posted about 50 times to this forum? LOL Do you know about the genetic and morphological connections of humans and other apes? LOL Who ever suggested humans are changing into anything? LOL If anything, because of our reprodcutive success and interbreeding of populations - were stifling evolution. LOL But then again, since you don't appear to understand even the rock bottom basics of evolution, I wouldn't expect you to comprehend that. LOL

 

[lucaspa]

Then it was OK for the world to let 800,000 Tutsis be hacked to death, and the Jews of Germany to be gagged, bagged and gassed by the trainload?

Based on the history of international relations, yes. None of the Allies entered WWII against Germany because of the treatment of the Jews. In fact, America turned away a ship of Jewish refugees in the late 1930s. Wouldn't admit them as refugees.

And did anyone interfere in Rwanda to save the Tutsis? The international community called it an internal matter.

That's not the answer that jibes with our basic sense of morality, but a sad reality is that international relations don't go by common sense morality. I think, at bottom, that it is a case of "who watches the watchers?" IOW, who gets to decide they are the ultimate moral authority and can impose their will on their neighbors?

Notice that domestic violence had the same problem: it took a long time and a lot of soul-searching before people decided at what point relations between a man and a wife crossed the line such that the state had to interfere. We eventually decided it on the grounds that the state could interfere as tho the husband and wife were not married. IOW, assault in marriage was the same as assault on a stranger.

Waging war solely on the justification of rescuing citizend of a country from a tyrant isn't acceptable. As another example, look at the trouble the Republicans gave Clinton when he tried to intervene in Kosovo! They said then that it wasn't our business. Now they try the same rationalization that they savaged then. Irony meter broke again.

In this case there were alternatives other than war to curb Hussein. As I said, the former ambassador to Iraq reports that Hussein was so afraid of invasion that he agreed to become a titular leader and transfer power to a Prime Minister. But Bush wanted a war and just brushed it off, after demanding it in the first place.

 

[lucaspa]

Evolustists can't get their stories straight then because what I am gettin my stuff from is wrong others that belive in that stuff and another thing how do you know that the theroies are totally correct?

What specifically are you referring to?

Vinegar and I are discussing what really is evolution. In this case, it is an education to some extent for Vinegar.

There is no evidence that its happening the gorillas still look the same to me humans look the same to me lol. What are we changing into?

There are other species than humans, you know. And we have seen them change to new species.

There are three populations of humans that are showing signs of adaptation to different environments or the begining of reproductive isolation -- new species. Remember, change proceed by small steps.

Here are adaptations to living at high altitude: http://www.biology-online.org/2/11_natural_selection.htm

 

[lucaspa]

Evolution states that everything is random, which means that human lives are worthless.

As others have pointed out, evolution does not state this. This is something creationists say about evolution. And they are referring to natural selection. But selection is not random. It is very deterministic. Only the good designs are selected.

This helped give Hitler the ideaology that Jews were worthless, besides his just plain hatred for them.

Actually, Hitler's ideology came from creationism. That different races were separate creations. The philosophy of Nazism can be traced to de Gobineau and his books that were published in 1853-1857. Notice that this was before Darwin published Origin in 1859.

"The foundation of modern "scientific" racism was Gobineau's (1853-5) Essay on the Inequality of Human Races. Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882) was a one-time diplomat who held that humanity is divided into three races, white, yellow and black. He considered that his reasoning established that the black race had an "animal character, that appears in the shape of the pelvis"; has a crude yet powerful energy; and dull mental faculties but has an "intensity of desire". The yellow race has little physical energy; feeble desires; mediocrity; a respect for order; and "does not dream or theorise". The whites have an energetic intelligence, perseverance, instinct for order, love of liberty, and sense of honour; they can be cruel, but when they are "they are conscious of their cruelty; it is very, doubtful whether such a consciousness exists in the negro".
"Gobineau was, naturally enough for Europeans of his day, a Biblical literalist; and he remained so all his life, seeing in Darwinism a negation of his view that races always had been and always would be as they now are"
http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/cg_science_of_racism.htm

"Although the beginnings of racism lie far back in history, its actual modern development really begins with the Frenchman, Arthur Count de Gobineau [1816-1882] who published his classic racist pronouncement "Essay on the Inequality of Human Races" in 1853-1857. Greatly misinterpreted by others, he wrote in a romantic fashion of a fair-haired Aryan race that was superior to all others. Gobineau maintained that remnants of this race could be found in various countries in Europe constituting a tiny racial aristocracy decaying under the overwhelming weight of inferior races. He made no special claims for the superiority of German Aryans, nor markedly denigrated other races. His racialism embraced not so much the races as the classes, the aristocracy versus the proletariat. Nevertheless, his ideas were widely distorted to fit the racial superiority theories of others. Hardly noticed in his own country, he enjoyed great popularity in Germany.... In 1890 Gobineau's book was revived and in 1894 the Gobineau Association was founded in Germany. His writings were popularised at this time by the Pan-Germans, an extremely nationalistic and anti-Jewish group who, though small in numbers, were very strong, their members including a high proportion of teachers.In 1899, Gobineau's disciples Houston Stewart Chamberlain [1855-1927], an Englishman holding German citizenship, published his two volume work, "The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century", in Germany. It proved immensely popular and ran into many editions. Departing from Gobineau's rather flowery ideas, he upheld the German race to be the purest form of Aryanism and damned the inferior races, the Jews and Negroes, as degenerate.Chamberlain combined the scientific fact of the existence of different races with an enriched mystical significance attached to one race, the Aryans, who had supposedly existed since the dawn of time. These mystical Aryans were held to be responsible for all the great cultures of the past, each of which had declined because the Aryans allowed other races to intermix with them resulting in the fall of that civilisation-Egypt, Greece, Rome all perished. " http://www.toolan.com/hitler/surplus.html

"Nazi ideology, to the extent that it had one, made garbled use of the racist theories of the Comte de Gobineau, the national fervour of Heinrich von Treitschke, and the superman theories of Friedrich Nietzsche. It was given dogmatic expression in Hitler's Mein Kampf (1925)." http://www.xrefer.com/entry/220617

 

[lucaspa]

Getting back to science...

In response to lucaspa's attempt to defend the formation of the eye, the light-sensitive spot requires more than simply rhodopsin. It also involves 11-cis-retinal, as well as a number of other factors for proper function. In maintaining the cup shape, dozens of complex proteins are involved. The ball of cells from which the cup will be made will tend to be rounded unless molecular supports hold it in the proper shape.

In the Paramecium, the light sensitive spot has only a rhodopsin-like protein. 11-cis-retinal is not a protein. It's a small molecule that is a modification of a fatty acid. It was added later. Remember, evolution is cumulative.

In maintaining the cup shape, the cells have actin which is used in all cells to maintain cell shape. The connection between cells is maintained by the extracellular matrix. I can't find that the extracellular matrix of the eye has any proteins that are not found in extracellular matrices in other parts of the body.

As to Hox genes, they direct other genes as to where they are to be expressed. They would not likely be responsible for producing the numerous molecules required to attain the cup.

Hox genes direct which genes are to be expressed and when during development. As such, they are indeed responsible for expressing the numerous genes required to attain the cup. After all, making leg cells produce Pax-6 rearranges the cells in the fly's leg to be cuplike, doesn't it?

Let's try another example: a tail. A tail is complex, involving many different cells and proteins. Yet, a change in one gene, Manx, can either cause a tail to appear or disappear.

Tracing a Backbone's Evolution Through a Tunicate's Lost Tail" Science vol. 274, pp 1082-1083, Nov. 15, 1996' Primary article is "Requirement of the Manx Gene for Expression of Chordat Freatures in a Tailless Ascidian Larvae" pp 1205-1208.

Adult tunicates are sedentary sea-dwellers with no sign of a backbone, and they live like mussels, attached to a shell or rock and filtering food through chimney-like siphons. However, in the larval stage tunicates are tadpoles, with dorsal nerve, a notochord, at tail, and skeletal muscles that power them through shallow tidal flats.

Of 3,000 known tunicate species, there are about a dozen tailless species, and that taillessness arose independently 5 times.

Now it turns out that a single gene, called Manx, controls the formation of the tail in tunicates. Manx is a regulatory gene. All tailless tunicates do not express Manx, all tailed ones do. If Manx is turned off artificially by giving antisense DNA for Manx to tunicate embryos, then the tail does not develop. This recreates the evolutionary changes that led to the tailless species of tunicates. Once more we have evolution in the lab. There is some circumstantial evidence that there is even another regulatory gene further up the pathway that regulates Manx production.

What we have here is that a SINGLE gene can regulate a major anatomical feature like a tail.

 

[lucaspa]

Iucaspa again: On reductionism, I find myself with a continuing bonnet-buzzing bee about "The Selfish Gene". It appears to me that it is just as valid to consider than selection takes place "at the level of" (for example) an ecosystem, or at multiple "levels" (gene, sets of genes, individual organism, population) across various overlapping species.

I suggest you read Mayr's What Evolution Is. Selection does not occur at these multiple levels. Selection occurs at the level of the individual. Dawkins had a good idea -- selfish gene. And genes are selfish. But Dawkins was wrong that selection happens at the gene level.

The thesis of the gene being THE crux of variation also seems to me, whilst extremely useful, also incomplete, not least given the very interdependence of genes with each other, and with the superstructure of DNA.

You are correct here. Very few traits are due to a single gene. Nearly all traits upon which selection acts are polygenic. We tend to concentrate here on the single gene ones because of the simplicity. Remember simplicity?

What's more, most genes contribute to more than one trait. Again, for simplicity, we don't get into models of this usually. So you have traits determined by more than one gene and each gene involved in more than one trait.

So yes, genes determine traits, but traits are not due to a single gene. Often genes and traits are linked. I remember reading one study (and this is one time I can't readily find the reference) where the researchers were trying to vary traits in a species of fish -- long and thin vs short and fat. But it turned out this was very difficult because the genes for long were linked with the genes for fat and the genes for thin linked with the genes for short. So they could get short and thin or long and fat, but long and thin was very difficult.

Also, it turns out that if a trait is acted on by two or more different positive selections, it is impossible to change. This is the underlying reason for homologies. The basic bone structure of the forelimb doesn't change because it is acted upon by more than one positive selection. This one I do have handy:

EVOLUTION:
G Wagner, Complexity matters. Science, 279, Number 5354 Issue of 20 February 1998, pp. 1158 - 1159

"Are organisms like liquid droplets, infinitely malleable by the changing forces of evolution, or do they contain a "frozen core"--the Bauplan, or body design, which remains little changed under the varying adaptive pressures a lineage encounters during its history? Until quite recently, these questions have divided evolutionary biologists (as well as philosophers) into two almost nonoverlapping camps. On the one hand are the so-called reductionists, largely recruited from the ranks of population genetics and associated disciplines, who are strongly committed to the adaptationist program of evolutionary biology. This group tends toward a world view in which there are no limits to an organism's variability and its ability to evolve. On the other hand are those biologists who primarily study whole organisms or complex phenotypic traits of organisms. This second group emphasizes the need to understand the constraints on evolutionary change that arise as a consequence of the intrinsic functional and developmental complexity of organisms. On page 1210 of this issue, Waxman and Peck (1) present a new mathematical result that reconciles most of the differences between these two camps. Population genetic equations predict, so they show, that parts of the phenotype effectively "crystallize" as the complexity of systems increase. But what is the problem to which this result is the solution?

The intellectual history of the problem goes back to the synthesis of Darwinian evolutionary theory and Mendelian genetics forged by the fathers of modern evolutionary theory, R. A. Fisher, S. Wright, and T. Dobzhansky. Through the marriage of genetics and Darwinism, it became clear that the process of evolution can be understood, or at least described, as changes in gene frequencies over time (2). New genes arise by mutation and are either lost (most likely) or they replace their parental genes, by selection or genetic drift. This, it turns out, is the most elementary level on which evolution can be explained. Consequently, a lot of effort was and continues to be invested in research directed at understanding these elementary processes. This remarkably successful research program has been pursued with the implicit assertion that evolution of real and complex organisms is just more of the same, and that no qualitatively new phenomena emerge as a result of increasing complexity (3). In this view, complexity is fundamentally irrelevant to an understanding of evolution. A corollary of this line of thinking is that all aspects and characters of the organism are variable and constantly changing (although at different rates), and the concept of a "Bauplan" (the body organization characteristic of a larger group of organisms) is an illusion (4).

A well-informed minority of organismal biologists, however, never were convinced of this radical view. Theirs is a more pluralistic view: yes, they agree, many characters are highly variable and their differences among species and populations can be understood as adaptations. But at some stages of evolution certain characters effectively "click in" and remain fixed in the descendent group of species (5-7). For instance, the chorda dorsalis (the embryonic precursor of our vertebral column) is absent in invertebrates, variably present in the relatives of vertebrates (ascidians and related groups) and absolutely fixed in vertebrates. The first who most clearly saw a connection between this pattern and increasing complexity was Rupert Riedl in the 1970s (6). He postulated that with increasing complexity some characters become more important because more and more new characters are functionally or developmentally predicated on them. Once such characters have accumulated many "responsibilities," mutational change will be detrimental and thus these characters become evolutionarily fixed. This increasing burden leads to fixation of characters. The problem with this view, however, was that it did not connect well with the then current population genetic theory.

Standard population genetic theory supports a liquid genome metaphor. In the balance between mutation and selection, each population settles into a state in which the most fit genotype is always surrounded by a sizable swarm of mutant genotypes buzzing around the best genotype (8), so much so that the concept of wild-type becomes meaningless. Variation is the name of the game. Only the amount of variation depends, in a continuous manner, on the relative strength of stabilizing selection, genetic drift, and mutation. Well, not exactly, according to the report by Waxman and Peck (1), which shows that there is a complexity limit beyond which genes can freeze into a fixed state and where the swarm of genetic variation suddenly disappears like fog in the sun. In the Waxman-Peck model, the complexity limit is reached once the genes affect more than two characters that are under simultaneous stabilizing selection.

To be precise, this freezing phenomenon has been described before (9), but it was seen as an arcane result of mathematical population genetics of uncertain significance and familiar to only a very few specialists. The significance of the present report is that Waxman and Peck have shown that this obscure property of mutation-selection equations has a connection to a generic property of organisms: complexity. Each gene has many effects and functions, each character is functionally connected to multiple others. Since this is the case, the freezing of genetic and phenotypic states is a necessary outcome, just as many organismal biologists have suspected for more than a century."

 

[lucaspa]

This is an interesting question (although very off-topic here). Should world community simply allow whatever butcher to be in power as long as he doesn't cross any borders? I don't know if I agree with this sentiment, though the alternative seems rife with difficulties such as where to draw the line on intervention. The U.N. is was created in such a way that intervention is extremely difficult - should it be easier? Tough question. What's the line about evil being able to flourish because of good men doing nothing?

Good questions. Notice the word I bolded. We are into ethics here, not science. But you knew that.

You already know there are no simple answers. One complication you haven't mentioned becomes: how many lives of the people we know are worth the lives in a foreign country? How many lives do I as a citizen but non-military consider justifiable to prevent butchery? IOW, I am asking someone else to put their butt on the line and maybe get killed. Clinton got away with Kosovo only because he could do it with airpower and no American died in combat.

You know, maybe we should start letting the people who will risk, and lose, their lives in these interventions get a vote. If they consider it worthwhile, maybe it is.

 

[notto]

I know it is said often but sometimes it just isn't said enough.

Lucaspa Rocks!

Thank you for taking the time to research and educate. The time you spend to give knowledge to this anonymous group is admirable. I've learned more on this board over the last 2 years related to evolutionary science than all my time in highschool and college.