OT: Gravity explained

[Homer J Simpson]

Evolution, as it applies to the origin of DNA, is arguably a goofy
belief. I've seen calculation by serious scientists that resulted in
probabilities than most statisticians would classify as "impossible."

Bollocks. According to a recent calculation, if you make a 2 mile round trip
to the corner store to buy a Powerball ticket you are 7 times as likely to
die in a car accident during the trip as to win the Powerball. Yet people do
win the Powerball.

Two strands of DNA form as a result of chemical activity. One has a stronger
'ability' to survive than the other. And away we go.

 

[John Larkin]

Two strands of DNA form as a result of chemical activity. One has a stronger
'ability' to survive than the other. And away we go.

Ah, science.

John

 

[Richard Henry]

Evolution, as it applies to the origin of DNA, is arguably a goofy
belief. I've seen calculation by serious scientists that resulted in
probabilities than most statisticians would classify as "impossible."

You can do that with almost anything if you look at the cause and
effect from the wrong direction..

For example, what are the odds that cars involved in accients will
skid right into those orange paint marks on the highway?

 

[Richard Henry]

As Bette Midler likes to say, "**** 'em if they can't take a joke".

Is that why she's so popular?

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Is that why she's so popular?

She is with me.

 

[John Larkin]

You can do that with almost anything if you look at the cause and
effect from the wrong direction..

For example, what are the odds that cars involved in accients will
skid right into those orange paint marks on the highway?

I am not aware of any research that demonstrates a plausible chemical/
evolutionary path from inorganics to a living cell containing DNA.
There may be a sneak path around the "impossible" calculations (like,
one chance in 10^200) odds of it happening, but there's nothing I've
seen but hand-waving about how DNA could happen. The "promordial soup"
concept has taken some recent hits from geological evidence; the
ancient Earth was covered, it seems, by pretty pure water. Lacking
hard evidence one way or another, I prefer to keep an open mind about
this.

John

 

[John Fields]

As Bette Midler likes to say, "**** 'em if they can't take a joke".

---
What joke?

Quoting a famous person makes your opinion important?

Try again, loser.

 

[Tim Williams]

The "promordial soup"
concept has taken some recent hits from geological evidence; the
ancient Earth was covered, it seems, by pretty pure water.

I recall hearing that it contained quite a bit of iron, for one thing.
After all, Venus is a strongly acidic environment (clouds of sulfuric acid,
eh?). This area in the solar system seems to be rocky and, on average,
acidic and reducing (compared to the reactive oxygen atmosphere we enjoy
today). My point being, about 2 billion years ago -- around when all those
cyanobacteria and such starting pooping out oxygen -- there's a pretty even
layer of orange to brown stuff: iron oxide. This stuff is still being mined
all over the world, and I recall Minnesota has quite a bit. There's a
formation in northern Wisconsin (extending into MI UP) that has been mined
out. Anyway, to return to my point, the oceans were full of iron(II) ions.
Oxidize to Fe(III) and you need a pretty strong acid to keep it in, which
isn't there, so it falls out as ferric hydroxide (drag orange brown). Add a
few billion years and you get a nice hard, rich product, ready for the blast
furnace.

Tim

 

[[email protected]]

Sure.

G W Bush
Pat Robertson
Jerry Falwell

All three propose Intelligent Design be taught and none is a Christian.

believe it or not, you are not the judge who determines who isn't or
is a Christian, no matter how much you want to be

 

[Homer J Simpson]

believe it or not, you are not the judge who determines who isn't or
is a Christian, no matter how much you want to be

Sure I am. What possible evidence can you offer that I am not?

 

[[email protected]]

Evolution, as it applies to the origin of DNA, is arguably a goofy
belief. I've seen calculation by serious scientists that resulted in
probabilities than most statisticians would classify as "impossible."

Until there's proof one way or another, any dismissal of a possible
origin for DNA is unreasoned prejudice.

Presenting possibilities is not the same as forcing beliefs down
anyone's throat. Personally, I lean towards the idea that DNA is a
very sophisticated algorithmic machine that was probably designed
somewhere else and transported to Earth. Far more radical concepts
have been proven true in the history of Science.

But that isn't even an theory, you are just postponing the inevitable
question by adding another meaningless intermediate step. Where did
those designer come from? Were they made of some simpler type of DNA
that was statistically probable of spontaneously forming? Or were
they created by something else, another link in the chain. You end up
not answering any questions.

If there were 10 designers in the link, and the very first DNA (or
whatever) was spontaneously formed and our DNA was the last to be
designed, then the evolutionist would still be correct in the
general , just wrong in the specifics.

 

[Terry Given]

Evolution, as it applies to the origin of DNA, is arguably a goofy
belief. I've seen calculation by serious scientists that resulted in
probabilities than most statisticians would classify as "impossible."

go shuffle a deck of cards, thoroughly.

Then spread them out.

then calculate the probability of that particular arrangement.

Its ~ 10^68, about the same as the number of atoms in the universe.

remarakbly though, it happened.

Clearly God did it

Until there's proof one way or another, any dismissal of a possible
origin for DNA is unreasoned prejudice.

Presenting possibilities is not the same as forcing beliefs down
anyone's throat. Personally, I lean towards the idea that DNA is a
very sophisticated algorithmic machine that was probably designed
somewhere else and transported to Earth. Far more radical concepts
have been proven true in the history of Science.

How can you call something wrong when you have no hard evidence that
something else is the right explanation? I sure hope you don't design
electronics that way.

John

Cheers
Terry

 

[John Larkin]

But that isn't even an theory, you are just postponing the inevitable
question by adding another meaningless intermediate step. Where did
those designer come from? Were they made of some simpler type of DNA
that was statistically probable of spontaneously forming? Or were
they created by something else, another link in the chain. You end up
not answering any questions.

Maybe something else that had an easier incremental path from elements
to life, some more basic automata than the byzantine complexity of
DNA. A few things come to mind. But the "theory" that DNA evolved on
Earth, randomly from some primordial soup, is just conjecture too. As
I said, lacking evidence one should consider even unlikely
possibilities and keep an open mind.

What's interesting is how many people are committed to the dogma of
DNA's random evolution and that associate any other possibilities with
religious fundamantalism so that they can discredit other ideas.
That's ain't thinking, and it sure ain't science. The history of
science is littered with unproven dogma that later turned out to be
wrong; do you think that can never happen again?

If there were 10 designers in the link, and the very first DNA (or
whatever) was spontaneously formed and our DNA was the last to be
designed, then the evolutionist would still be correct in the
general , just wrong in the specifics.

Very wrong. Perhaps our life form is a gross simplification, not some
peak of evolution. They gave Copernicus a hard time, too.

The real point, being that this is s.e.d and not some biology group,
is that you define yourself by the things that you declare to be
impossible. I make my living, a decent one, by taking business away
from people who think things are impossible.

John

 

[John Larkin]

go shuffle a deck of cards, thoroughly.

Then spread them out.

then calculate the probability of that particular arrangement.

Its ~ 10^68, about the same as the number of atoms in the universe.

remarakbly though, it happened.

Clearly God did it

But the overwhelming fraction of those arrangements is useless. Hell,
you probably can't find a run that makes a decent poker hand.

John

 

[Terry Given]

But the overwhelming fraction of those arrangements is useless. Hell,
you probably can't find a run that makes a decent poker hand.

John

indeed. but it dose a fairly good job of explaining the "its jolly
unlikely" argument (via the weak anthropic principle)

personally, I have no problem with the concept of something creating our
universe. I expect in a century or two we will be able to do just that,
and will have sufficient knowledge to understand the consequences.

All this shit about houses, an eternal afterlife at Jesus' right hand et
al, the ascension of Mary, blah blah, is absolute twaddle though; the
tooth fairy makes more sense. And as far as ID is concerned, how come
75% of all pregnancies self-terminate as the blastocyst is FUBAR.
Explain Eeyore, Phil and Homer (who never seems to post anything except
silly diatribes against America, without which most of electronics just
wouldnt exist).

All religions are equally silly. I just wish religious zealots wouldnt
come knocking on my door early on saturday morning. I dont pester them
about my non-beliefs. Its a great pity the 11th commandment wasnt "thou
shalt not proselytise"

Cheers
Terry

 

[Homer J Simpson]

Explain Eeyore, Phil and Homer (who never seems to post anything except
silly diatribes against America, without which most of electronics just
wouldnt exist).

Without Tesla you mean.

 

[Terry Given]

Without Tesla you mean.

I share his birthday, I started my career designing 3-phase AC motor
controllers, and two of my current projects involve SCIM control.

And Tesla had piss all to do with electronics (although electric motors
use 70% of the worlds electricity).

As an aside, you just make yourself look silly with all the name-calling
posts. I think all and sundry get the message you dont like USA, can you
please find something else to post about? preferrably electronics.....

or at least make your diatribes more interesting than "you're a fag" or
the equivalent thereof.

Cheers
Terry

 

[John Larkin]

indeed. but it dose a fairly good job of explaining the "its jolly
unlikely" argument (via the weak anthropic principle)

The WAP always bothers me. The overwhelming probability is that, right
now, neither you nor I should exist.

personally, I have no problem with the concept of something creating our
universe. I expect in a century or two we will be able to do just that,
and will have sufficient knowledge to understand the consequences.

All this shit about houses, an eternal afterlife at Jesus' right hand et
al, the ascension of Mary, blah blah, is absolute twaddle though; the
tooth fairy makes more sense. And as far as ID is concerned, how come
75% of all pregnancies self-terminate as the blastocyst is FUBAR.

Certainly the idea of a benevolent God who supervises the health of
every sparrow is hard to accept; He would *not* be a nice person. But
I find it interesting how adamant many people are to not be assiciated
with believers; adamant to the point of taking silly dogmatic
positions to dispel any suspicion that they may be closet Christians.

Interesting that dogs or horses can mate just once and be practically
guaranteed of delivering a live offspring or three. I think humans
are, evolutionarily, still in the "kluge" stage of development.

Explain Eeyore, Phil and Homer (who never seems to post anything except
silly diatribes against America, without which most of electronics just
wouldnt exist).

Eeyore is OK, often. The others are beyond explanation, unless you buy
the "kluge" thing.

All religions are equally silly. I just wish religious zealots wouldnt
come knocking on my door early on saturday morning. I dont pester them
about my non-beliefs. Its a great pity the 11th commandment wasnt "thou
shalt not proselytise"

We get a lot more environmentalists than bible-bangers, but the
bangers are more polite.

John

 

[Terry Given]

The WAP always bothers me. The overwhelming probability is that, right
now, neither you nor I should exist.




Certainly the idea of a benevolent God who supervises the health of
every sparrow is hard to accept; He would *not* be a nice person. But
I find it interesting how adamant many people are to not be assiciated
with believers; adamant to the point of taking silly dogmatic
positions to dispel any suspicion that they may be closet Christians.

indeed. And a good read of the bible(s) suggests He isnt very nice either.

Interesting that dogs or horses can mate just once and be practically
guaranteed of delivering a live offspring or three. I think humans
are, evolutionarily, still in the "kluge" stage of development.

did you ever read the article (IEEE spectrum IIRC) about reliability
modelling and humans? the authors basically applied weibull-style stats
to humans, and got interesting results - we look a lot like massively
parallel machines that start with huge numbers of flaws, but kinda work
anyway.

which makes sense from an evolutionary (AKA compounded kluge) perspective

Eeyore is OK, often.

true, but he's currently messing up the opto thread, and Keith is just
encouraging him. plus most posts seem to be pointless requests for
(often unnecessary) details. Still at least he's polite.


The others are beyond explanation, unless you buy

the "kluge" thing.




We get a lot more environmentalists than bible-bangers, but the
bangers are more polite.

John

indeed. I once had a T-shirt that said "Jesus nukes gay whales"


although envronmentalists do have one good point: industries (it matters
not which ones) really shouldnt be allowed to make horrid messes without
cleaning them up.

Here in NZ dairy farming is responsible for 50% of our greenhouse gas
emissions (methane from burping ruminants), and almost all of our water
pollution issue, via nutrient and cow-shit runoff. Not much can be done
about the former, but you should hear the farmers scream when it is
suggested they keep the cow shit out of rivers.....almost as loud as
they scream for government assistance whenever floodplains flood.


I do like the environmentalist take on electricity, which looks kinda
like this:

No nuke plants - OK, the economics are dubious, and the messes are
astonishingly hard to dispose of.

No coal power plants - hmm, modern coal plants are a lot better than the
old ones. greenies hate the coal mines, but hell, if they clean up the
resultant mess when their done, whats wrong with that.

No hydro plants - getting silly here. they object to drowing perfectly
good valleys (which could house burping ruminants . its almost a moot
point here, as there are only so many suitable sites, and we have
already used most of them.

No windmills - because they are ugly. this is just plain stupid.


(I'm surprised no-one is mooting coppicing for wood-fired power plants,
which is carbon neutral)


I guess ultimately all zealots are cut from the same cloth

Cheers
Terry

 

[Homer J Simpson]

I share his birthday, I started my career designing 3-phase AC motor
controllers, and two of my current projects involve SCIM control.

And Tesla had piss all to do with electronics (although electric motors
use 70% of the worlds electricity).

He only invented radio transmission and reception.

As an aside, you just make yourself look silly with all the name-calling
posts. I think all and sundry get the message you don't like USA, can you
please find something else to post about? preferably electronics.....

I do like the USA. I just don't like idiots who think they own the world and
that that makes their opinions worth something.

or at least make your diatribes more interesting than "you're a fag" or
the equivalent thereof.

If you were paying attention you would have noticed I am not the one who
starts those.