Denial of Evolution VI.

[wellwisher]

Invention does not mean everyone had the sense to make use of it nor does it means the invention was deliberate. A flute could have been a unique thing that was handed down and was not fabricated on a wide scale. A reasonable scenario is someone picks up a bone to suck or blow out of the marrow, only to find this unique fragment of bone makes a sound; dog teeth marks in the bone. It is handed down for generations with little tweaks here and there. Beads; one can find shiny round rocks and gold in the river bed and collect then. This is handed down and the collection grows.

Often discovery is accidental. Fire and cooking could come from a forest fire, with dead animals having been cooked by the forest fire. This tasted better than raw, but once the fire goes out the discovery is gone until next year. The next seasonal fire will bring good fortune again with feeding the fire, both wood and dead animals, gradually dawning on them. This would be taboo at first, like anything new even today, since the elders would be afraid of change. But the younger generation persists only to become the new inhibition of the future; slows the pace. I suppose the slow pace makes sure the speed of invention is not too fast to where you loose everyone.

But eventually, about 6000-10,000 years ago, the pace of invention quickens.

 

[rpenner]

Just seems off to me. 100s of thousands of years and not even a pencil?

[sarcasm]Just seems off to me. Dozens of posts and not even a new scientific theory?[/sarcasm]

You are referred again to the first law of holes. Hematite and limonite crayons are analogous to pencils and Fraggle Rocker was listing documented use of tools, not inferred use of tools. The earliest written records we have are on clay which survives better than records on paper, and those written marks were made with a stylus -- a useful analogue of a pencil similar to the modern tool that Apple makes you buy separately when you use an iPad.

 

[leopold]

Often discovery is accidental.

the most famous would be the bipolar transistor.
shockly, bardeen, and brittain were looking for a replacement for the vacuum tube but found the BJT instead.
the FET is what they were looking for and it was found a few years later.

 

[billvon]

Just seems off to me. 100s of thousands of years and not even a pencil?

So are you backing off on the "2-3 thousand years" thing?

 

[billvon]

Ok...no joke, this is BEYOND fascinating. Many people TODAY have genes from archaic humans??! This is pretty incredible.

Doesn't seem very incredible. It's a fancy way of saying "we have genes from our ancestors."

Could it explain why some ppl get cancer and some don't? (all things being equal, other reasons being ruled out of course)

Well part of that is genetic predisposition for cancer, of course. But keep in mind that cancer is a genetic accident; it comes about when the genes that control cell growth are expressed excessively and the genes that are intended to stop growth and/or kill the cell fail. Fortunately our cells have a lot of levels of backups to prevent runaway growth (i.e. cancer.) But all it takes is one cell out of the trillions of cells in our bodies to have that kind of a complete breakdown - and you have cancer.

You can, of course, increase your odds of cancer a large number of ways. You can irritate the epithelial cells in your lungs by smoking. You can damage your cells through exposure to ionizing radiation, like sunlight or gamma rays. By damaging cells at random this greatly increases the odds of runaway growth.

This is fascinating and I want to know why this isn't being publicized more?

It's been talked about pretty extensively in forums like this, and in periodicals like Science News, Nature etc. Just not on the Action McNews channels. A long-extinct race of hominids can't possibly compete with Kim Kardashian's latest topless photos.

 

[wegs]

It's been talked about pretty extensively in forums like this, and in periodicals like Science News, Nature etc. Just not on the Action McNews channels. A long-extinct race of hominids can't possibly compete with Kim Kardashian's latest topless photos.

not sure, but this sounds like a jab. i don't watch the kardashians.


and if i wish to think something is incredible, i can.
to me, it is pretty fascinating to know that many people alive today, potentially share some of the genetic makeup of the neanderthal era.
frankly, i would think this could potentially hold a key for disease cures, vaccinations, and potential immune system improvement.
that's just me, i guess.

 

[Write4U]

Doesn't seem very incredible. It's a fancy way of saying "we have genes from our ancestors."

That is how we can trace the line backwards from today. The species in the above list of Hominidae all share certain fundamental genes common to our Family tree. I believe they are called "markers"

Thus while I would be nice if we could find fossils that show the step by step evolution in our genes, all we really need to look for is those particular markers to see if the fossil was a hominid, regardless of age. Age is actually a separate issue from being fundamentally related.

We know that Homo split of from the other hominids, just by the fusing of two genes into a single gene.

Human Chromosome 2 is a fusion of two ancestral chromosomes

Introduction
All great apes apart from man have 24 pairs of chromosomes. There is therefore a hypothesis that the common ancestor of all great apes had 24 pairs of chromosomes and that the fusion of two of the ancestor's chromosomes created chromosome 2 in humans. The evidence for this hypothesis is very strong.

http://www.evolutionpages.com/chromosome_2.htm

If you look at the illustration you can see exactly how these two chromosomes fused into a singe one, which is peculiar to humans only. But we still share all the other chromosomes. That is why we all are great apes, with humans the most advanced.

But it also allows us to establish an approximate time this mutation happened and the Human branch started from our Family tree and I believe it was considerably earlier than 3000 years, or 6000 year, or even 60,000 years.

 

[billvon]

not sure, but this sounds like a jab. i don't watch the kardashians.

It is, but not against you; against the level of popular news reporting in the US. (Sorry if that was unclear.)

My favorite example - a real cure for type II diabetes is now in final trials. It consists of two parts - an "anti-vaccine" that desensitizes the immune system to B-cells, and something called betatropin that encourages regrowth of beta cells. In the last trial most people saw improvements in their conditions; no one got worse or saw significant side effects.

Big news, right? Diabetes is a big health problem here in the US. But you'd have to be reading Science News to find out about it.

 

[wegs]

It is, but not against you; against the level of popular news reporting in the US. (Sorry if that was unclear.)

okay...thank you for clarifying.

My favorite example - a real cure for type II diabetes is now in final trials. It consists of two parts - an "anti-vaccine" that desensitizes the immune system to B-cells, and something called betatropin that encourages regrowth of beta cells. In the last trial most people saw improvements in their conditions; no one got worse or saw significant side effects.

this is interesting, and you are right. quite sad the 'news' doesn't report on it. i read a lot of medical journals and online articles. i find health and wellness to be quite fascinating. unforuntately, i tend to read more about treatments than preventative measures when it comes to diseases. modern medicine is slowly changing that current. i have a friend who is off of her diabetic meds, because she radically changed her diet, to lean meats, fish, veggies, and low glycemic foods, for example, at the urging of her doc. now, she is not enslaved to her meds. not saying meds are not necessary, but i'm a believer in holistic and alternative healing methods. and i'm hopeful we can start seeing docs combine traditional treatment with alternative methods, as more of a rule going forward, than the exception.

what you post above, excellent there are no known side effects, (yet). Hopefully, that will remain the case. So much in the way of 'treatments' for one ailment these days, leaves one with a whole host of additional ailments, potentially, by taking the meds prescribed for their condition.

Big news, right? Diabetes is a big health problem here in the US. But you'd have to be reading Science News to find out about it.

sad but true, billvon.

 

[Aqueous Id]

to me, it is pretty fascinating to know that many people alive today, potentially share some of the genetic makeup of the neanderthal era.

Imagine the outcry from the fundamentalists over that. And you're right when you said "many people", since many people don't carry the Neanderthal marker--specifically, people of African heritage whose ancestors never shared DNA outside of their homeland group. That leaves it for the white supremacists to agonize over the fact that only "pure black" people are "100% human" (i.e., Homo sapiens sapiens). We can speculate that this kind news probably did more to cement white supremacy to fundamentalism, in a common distrust of science, than many others. (If I had been on top of my game, I would have been mass producing my EVOLUTiON IS A LIE bumper stickers right after that news came out . . . the ones with the Confederate flag on one side and a picture of a Bible on the right).

No doubt the fundamentalist fear of caving in to the facts of science, particularly evolution, has produced one of the most unholy marriages between the nobler ideas of religion (compassion and generosity) and the worst (sanctimony leading to selfishness). The duplicity in that kind of thinking is (especially if we take the KKK as its emblem) nothing short of psychopathic.

Just think of all of the genetic similarity among humans and all other life forms, all the way down the "tree of life" - primates, mammals, tetrapods, chordates, metazoans -- all the way back to first cells. For all the folks who went to charter schools just to get some of that ole time faith-based science (the numbers may be fairly alarming when we factor in the fact that 12% of biology teachers believe the Earth is 6,000 years old), science, as we are discussing it in this thread, must appear to be the Devil himself. After all, we're not only talking about descending from "monkeys" (ape-like protohumans) but sharing genes with . . . the banana . . . yeast, fer Gawd's sake . . . and then there's the lowly fruit fly, which has played a role in this thread. Imagine the disgrace of being told you've descended from a common ancestor of an insect, while convinced that Divine Revelation places humans at the center of God's purpose for creation--as seen through the eye of the fundamentalist.

We can laugh now, but during times that fundamentalists get themselves elected by solidarity with the hard-core anti-science crowd, some of the most bizarre threats emerge against academic freedom and the fruits of research, even to the point of unwittingly cutting one's nose off to spite her face. It's the absurdity upon absurdity--the glorification of ignorance--that makes this so "throwed off":

[video=youtube;Eg1vIeuQT1s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg1vIeuQT1s[/video]​

which also speaks to your comment that

frankly, i would think this could potentially hold a key for disease cures, vaccinations, and potential immune system improvement.

Unfortunately there is no known genetic cure for faith-based, anti-science denial of reality!

 

[leopold]

Unfortunately there is no known genetic cure for faith-based, anti-science denial of reality!

faith based phenomenon isn't scientific but yet it has been documented over and over to be a fact. it's a reality.
apparently this effect is so powerful that it requires double blind tests to completely nullify its effects.
for the life of me i can't imagine why evolution would produce such a trait.

 

[Randwolf]

faith based phenomenon isn't scientific but yet it has been documented over and over to be a fact. it's a reality.

Could you share some links to these "documented facts" that are "a reality"?

apparently this effect is so powerful that it requires double blind tests to completely nullify its effects.

Please explain how a double blind test can "completely nullify [factual] effects".

for the life of me i can't imagine why evolution would produce such a trait.

Which trait? The tendency to believe in the supernatural? Or "faith"?

 

[wegs]

Lol I think they were both being sarcastic/joking around, randwolf.
I could be wrong, though.

 

[Randwolf]

Lol I think they were both being sarcastic/joking around, randolf.
I could be wrong, though.

I'm not sure who the "both" is that you are referring to, but leopold was most definitely not joking. (Although he may claim he was now)

Spend a little time reviewing leopold's posts and you'll see what I mean.

 

[leopold]

Lol I think they were both being sarcastic/joking around, randolf.
I could be wrong, though.

my post was factual.

 

[Randwolf]

Originally Posted by wegs
Lol I think they were both being sarcastic/joking around, randolf.
I could be wrong, though.

my post was factual.

Told ya...

 

[wegs]

my post was factual.

Oh, ok.
Could you expound on what u meant above in your comments? I, for one, am interested.

 

[wegs]

Told ya...

Lol yes you did.

 

[leopold]

Oh, ok.
Could you expound on what u meant above in your comments? I, for one, am interested.

the placebo effect.
it's a well known phenomenon in medical science.
i mentioned double blind tests were used to nullify its effects but i don't think that's true.
i don't think double blind tests can nullify it because the effect comes from the subjects themselves.

a typical example:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=placebo-effect-a-cure-in-the-mind

medical literature the world over has confirmed this effect.

 

[wegs]

Oh I see. I'm aware of what the placebo effect is, but I don't believe science can "prove" or "disprove" faith. But faith can prove science.
My opinion.