07.02.09
Posted in Evolution at 2:50 pm by nemo
Comment: Huxley’s warning to Darwin
James said,
July 2, 2009 at 2:36 pm ·
While NS is a problem, the real issue is that evolutionary biology isn’t anywhere close to being able to develop an adequate theory. We would still be stuck with the same problems if Kimura’s theory became the reigning paradigm. Biologists should get over their physics envy and admit that they aren’t ready to join the “real science” club.
Natural selection theory has made people complacent. But ‘evolution’ is a very complex subject indeed.
I always recomment the eonic effect. There is no theory there, because we are confronted by a massively complex entity stretching over ten millennia and actively dynamic in relation to complex parts of culture.
Once we see that, at least in part, we realize that ‘evolution’ is another dimension of effects, an order of magnitude more complex than physics.
So it is a bit silly to be going around preening one’s feathers over Darwinism.
Primitive ape behavior.
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Posted in Evolution at 2:14 pm by nemo
Looking at this naivete on the part of Darwinists, that natural selection can explain language evolution, I am mindful of T.H. Huxley’s warning to Darwin on the even of the publication of Orign: you unnecessarily burden yourself with natural selection.
That Huxley, Darwin’s principle defender and promoter, should have taken this view on NS should be a wake up call for scientists, and followers of Darwinism. But it seems not to sink in. People like Huxley hadn’t suffered a century of brainwashing on NS. Their excitement was in the ‘fact’ of evolution.
The issue of the day was ‘evolution’, although the word was not yet in general usage. After a generation of public reluctance after the French Rev (’evolution’ being about as respectable as ‘bolshevism’ is today) the tide began turning, first with Chambers, then especially with Darwin.
Darwin’s breakthrough was in the public promotion of evolution, first, then, his natural selection theory, second, and that theory was less popular, for good reason.
Consider the point, and the unnecessary confusion created by Darwin in the middle of his ’success’.
This is important, given the previous post discussing the left on language evolution: everyone in ’secular’ circles is unnecessarily burdened with NS theory.
If you really think an organ as complex as language arose by NS, without proof, then the argument will, fairly soon, cede to the religious critics, because ‘design’ seems like the only alternative, to those unnecessarily burdened with NS thinking.
The only safe stance for a secularist here is to plead ignorance. We are completely outclassed by the question of the evolution of language.
That’s not surprising: we don’t even understand how language works, or its neuroscience. Small wonder its evolution is an enigma.
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Posted in General at 1:57 pm by nemo
I am usually reluctant to put up statistics, but here are
Some stats for June.
total pages/total visits are the main stats
Total pages went over 300000 for the first time
total visits are down slightly, and are highly volatile
(a sign people get angry and stay away)
Total Hits 410404
Total Files 353324
Total Pages 312662
Total Visits 47295
Total KBytes 7393567
. Avg Max
Hits per Day 13680 21866
Files per Day 11777 20227
Pages per Day 10422 18949
Visits per Day 1576 2167
KBytes per Day 246452 595527
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Posted in Descent of Man Revisited, Evolution at 1:28 pm by nemo
Evolution’s revolution
Mike Belbin looks at the emergence of human culture and the vital role of symbolism
“Do materialists really think that language just ‘evolved’, like finches’ beaks …?” - AN Wilson, ‘Why I believe again’ New Statesman April 6 2009
“We are annoying to the leopard because our ancestor stole fire from theirs” - South Amerindian story
What kind of animal are humans? To the crude materialist we are, according to taste, chiefly animal; bundles of needs, habits and reactions; savage or simple. To the spiritual believer, animal matter required something extra, something originally separate, to become human. Is human culture then just another kind of animal behaviour? What does it mean to trace humanity’s development from nature to society? What is the ‘missing link’ between natural history and anthropology? If animals communicate, and they do, is there anything special about human language
The left hasn’t a clue on evolution, which is about the same condition liberals find themselves in. (and everyone else)
This quote from A.N. Wilson (who has done major Wobbles on atheism, now a ‘reconvert’) constitutes a threat to leftist/materialist thinking. The more so since all these people quoting Marx/Engels ad nauseam on these issues simply show their ignorance. And quoting Chomsky is also problematical: he is a postdarwinist who arm has been so twisted by Pinker that he can be considered a victim of torture: silenced.
How is the complex potential for language Chomsky depicts to have evolved?
At least Wilson doesn’t (here) propose the design argument.
These navie leftists are going to lost the argument for us. Time to really consider what Wilson is saying. It is dangerous thinking for old-fashioned nineteenth century materialist. The public is going to regress to religious traditionalism if the left/liberals keep spouting Darwin stupidities.
The study of the eonic effect can help here, if only to remind us that real evolution is so far beyond our current grasp that we may as well be chimpanzees on the subject: Check out the ‘evolution of art’ in the axial period,
Art, evolution, and the tragic genre
Beyond that, a new approach to evolution/universal history can be pursued in two essays here:
http://eonic-effect.net/index_top_1848.htm
http://eonic-effect.net/politics_of_evolution.htm
It is worth remembering that Marx talked materialism but was a post-Hegelian with a sense of ‘universal history’, as in the philosophy of history.
That’s closer to a form of an ‘atheist’ design argument than to materialism.
I wouldn’t be citing A.N. Wilson so glibly here.
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Posted in Evolution at 1:07 pm by nemo
Comment on Zogby: most Americans believe in ID
James said,
July 2, 2009 at 9:11 am ·
They should also do another poll to determine the number of Americans who are aware that the argument from design was successfully torpedoed a while ago.
The point is absolutely clear: the ID group seems to be betting noone has heard of any of the history of the design argument
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Posted in Evolution at 12:59 pm by nemo
On the Origin of Form
Stuart Pivar has an interesting new website on self-organization, and the topological/toroidal aspects of organismic structure and evolution.
Before Darwin, natural history (biology) was divided into two disciplines: morphology (shape) and physiology (function). These were neatly separate until Darwin suggested that one causes the other. This mind-boggling idea has been the basis of the inquiry into the cause, or causes, of evolution, and of vigorous contention among scientists that continues today. The debate is not over whether evolution took place, but over its primary mechanisms.
The arch-morphologist of the enlightened eighteenth century was scientist/poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), who coined the term “morphology.” Goethe pursued a life-long, Faustian quest for the presumed single, universal structure he called the “Urform,” which underlies and shapes all living form. His correspondence indicates on several occasions that he thought he had found the elusive structure.
Two hundred years later the discovery that organic forms could be simulated by the deformation of a strange, newly discovered topological surface led to the conjecture that this unique structure is the basis of all plant and animal shapes, the Urform of Goethe. This structure is an unusual topological configuration consisting of a torus (doughnut form) within a torus.
This discovery is the basis of this book, presenting what evolutionary biologists call a “structuralist” model of biological origins. The model is based on the premise that the species body form is encoded not in the DNA, but in the patterned structure of the membrane of the primordial germ plasm, universal predecessor of the egg. After introductory notes on the scientific phenomena that are touched on by this premise, the theory and the model itself is presented. Explication of the multi-torus model is followed by reprints of scientific papers that form the basis for its premise—the toroidal nature of the embryonic tissue.
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Posted in Evolution at 12:47 pm by nemo
Did Evolution Make Us Cancer Prone?
ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009) — Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) have discovered that gene mutations that once helped humans survive may increase the possibility for diseases, including cancer.
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Posted in biology at 12:46 pm by nemo
Schizophrenia Linked For First Time To Specific Chromosome Region
ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009) — Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have played a major role in an international effort that has shown, for the first time, that modern genetic technologies can solve the riddle of how gene variations lead to schizophrenia.
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Posted in Evolution, Science & Religion at 12:44 pm by nemo
July 2, 2009, 7:44 am
The Non-Evolution of God
By Nicholas Wade
Robert Wright’s new book, “The Evolution of God,” has a provocative title. But it’s a disappointment from the Darwinian perspective. He doesn’t mean real evolution, just the development of ideas about God.
Read the rest of this entry »
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Posted in Evolution at 12:41 pm by nemo
Darwin complicit in manipulating photos
July 2nd, 2009 When Darwin came to publish The Expression of the Emotions in 1872, he employed images made by five photographers to illustrate the wide variation in human facial expressions. A new study of the way that two of these photographers operated reveals the extent to which Darwin’s photographs were manipulated.
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Posted in Evolution at 12:37 pm by nemo
Not Darwin’s Year?
By Freakonomics
According to a Zogby poll taken this year, Darwin’s 200th anniversary, Americans favor intelligent design over Darwinian theory. According to the poll, 33 percent of respondents said they agreed with Darwinism, but 52 percent agreed that “the development of life was guided by intelligent design.” On the other hand, the poll was commissioned by The Discovery Institute, which advocates intelligent design. This is the kind of thing that gives Gary Langer fits.
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Posted in biology at 12:35 pm by nemo
Salamanders, Regenerative Wonders, Heal Like Mammals, People
ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009) — The salamander is a superhero of regeneration, able to replace lost limbs, damaged lungs, sliced spinal cord — even bits of lopped-off brain.
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Posted in biology at 12:33 pm by nemo
Alzheimer’s Symptoms Reversed: Blood Stem Cell Growth Factor Reverses Memory Decline In Mice
ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009) — A human growth factor that stimulates blood stem cells to proliferate in the bone marrow reverses memory impairment in mice genetically altered to develop Alzheimer’s disease
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Posted in biology, global warming at 12:32 pm by nemo
Plants Save The Earth From An Icy Doom
ScienceDaily (July 2, 2009) — When glaciers advanced over much of the Earth’s surface during the last ice age, what kept the planet from freezing over entirely? This has been a puzzle to climate scientists because leading models have indicated that over the past 24 million years geological conditions should have caused carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to plummet, possibly leading to runaway “icehouse” conditions.
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Posted in biology at 12:30 pm by nemo
Mice Run Faster On High-grade Oil
ScienceDaily (July 1, 2009) — Between the 1932 and 2008 Olympic Games, world record times of the men’s 100m sprint improved by 0.6 seconds due to improved training techniques and technological advances. Imagine if this improvement could be achieved by a simple change in diet. Scientists at the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology in Austria have managed to achieve an equivalent feat in mice fed on a diet high in polyunsaturated fatty acids.
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:25 pm by nemo
Published on Thursday, July 2, 2009 by Politico.com
Washington Post Sells Access, $25,000+
by Mike Allen
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/02-6
For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to “those powerful few” - Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.
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Posted in In the News at 12:23 pm by nemo
Published on Thursday, July 2, 2009 by Salon.com
Californians Are Sinking Themselves
An inflexible right wing is allowing the Golden State to drown in debt. But it’s not alone
by Gary Kamiya
The world’s eighth-largest economy has just gone belly-up. When midnight tolled on Tuesday night with legislators and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger still deadlocked over how to resolve the state’s staggering $24 billion budget shortfall, California became unable to pay its bills. The state will have to begin issuing IOUs to its creditors as early as Thursday. It is the worst budget crisis in the state’s modern history.
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:21 pm by nemo
Published on Thursday, July 2, 2009 by Agence France Presse
Amnesty Accuses Israel of Using Human Shields in Gaza
JERUSALEM - Amnesty accused Israeli forces on Thursday of war crimes in Gaza, saying they used children as human shields and conducted wanton attacks on civilians, in a report rejected as “unbalanced” by Israel.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/07/02-7
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Posted in In the News at 12:18 pm by nemo
How Goldman Sachs and Citi Run the Show
The Wall Street White House
By ANDREW COCKBURN
http://www.counterpunch.org/andrew07022009.html
Robert Hormats, Vice Chairman of Goldman Sachs, is to be installed as Under Secretary of Economics, Business, and Agricultural Affairs. This comes as one more, probably unnecessary reminder of the total control exercised by Wall Street over the Obama administration’s economic and financial policy. True, Hormats is “a talker rather than a decider” according to one former White House official, but he will find plenty of old friends used to making decisions, almost all of them uniformly disastrous for the U.S. and global economy.
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:13 pm by nemo
RG mail
Links and forum to comment on this and other columns at:
June 30, 2009
150 Years
Twenty-five years ago, poisonous gas escaped from a factory run by the
chemical company Union Carbide in Bhopal, India. Many thousands died,
many more were debilitated or badly injured, and the plant site remains
polluted. Despite charges of culpable homicide, executives from Union
Carbide (now merged into Dow Chemical) were never tried or sent to jail.
By Robert Weissman
One hundred and fifty years jail time for Bernard Madoff is a good thing.
To listen to the victims of his swindle, or read their words, is to
appreciate the very far-reaching ways in which Madoff’s quiet crime has
wreaked havoc on the lives of thousands of families.
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:09 pm by nemo
gnxp
A protein found on brain cells, known to contribute to nicotine addiction, may also be the key to developing drugs for a wide range of diseases and medical conditions, including obesity, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease
http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2009/06/29/brown_university_research_on_brain8217s_alpha_7_receptor_may_yield_drugs_for_hard_to_treat_diseases/
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:08 pm by nemo
RG mail
The Human Genome Project blew apart the idea that “race” was a biologically meaningful term – but new genetic technologies threaten to revive it, warns Osagie Obasogie
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327156.500-linking-genes-to-geography-could-revive-race-myth.html
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Posted in Evolution, you've got mail at 12:06 pm by nemo
gnxp
Fossils recently discovered in Myanmar could prove that the common ancestors of humans, monkeys and apes evolved from primates in Asia, rather than Africa, researchers contend in a study released Wednesday
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090701/ap_on_sc/as_sci_myanmar_primate_fossil
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:05 pm by nemo
gnxp
Could it be that humans are not quite as gullible as advertised? Researchers can’t always sway diners with the lure of a bargain
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/30/science/30tier.html
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Posted in you've got mail at 12:03 pm by nemo
RG mail
http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/07/01/overfishing/index.html
Plundering the oceans
Overfishing continues at a shocking rate, as countries break one environmental promise after another
By Katharine Mieszkowski
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