I figured I'd post this

This is a comment I left on a blog earlier, but since it's likely never going to show up, I figured I'd post it here.

The argument for "human life beginning at conception" is indefensible and ignorant of our knowledge of human biology and physiology. The reasons for this are quite simple: why draw the line at conception? Why not say that human life began several billion years ago and has continued since via a chain of organisms? The reason for saying a "human starts" at conception is based upon the silly notion that humans have souls that enter the child at conception. I suppose it communicates via the pineal gland like Descartes said?

But let's digress to another point completely; you think that a fertilized egg is special in some way, and that your god cares what happens to it. Explain to me, then, why less than 25% of the time, (on any given cycle) when a woman is TRYING to conceive, she succeeds, not because an egg isn't released, fertilized, and viable, but because it did not implant into the uterine lining. Then, of those, 25% miscarry by the sixth week. Of those remaining (down to 20% of the original ones trying to get pregnant) an additional 10% of them end in clinical miscarriages. So we're down to 18% chance of pregnancy with NO form of contraception and the woman is fertile, healthy, and on a good diet. To top it off, an additional 1% of births are stillborn.

So now let's review, if a fertilized egg is a newborn child, the ramifications for this are MUCH farther than you expected.
1) we must try and convict your god of murder
2) we must try and convict every woman to have ever had a child, because, statistically speaking, she's killed at least 3 for every child she's had.
3) we must engage in actively thwarting your gods plan to kill more embryos by removing the ovaries of all women and producing children for society by means of an artificial womb.
4) we must put your god in prison for a life sentence for each murder he/she/it committed.

Or we could just admit how silly calling a anything with absolutely no means of experiencing the world as we do "human." After all, humans care for humans out of empathy, but we cannot possibly conclude that an embryo suffers pain, feels joy, or has any thoughts at all, because thoughts require neurons, neurons are cells, and the most a birth control pill will stop is a few hundred undifferentiated cells.

Think he's gonna post it? Nah, I don't think so either.

Evolve: Eyes

Let's kick this off right, with rum!

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Ok, ok, eagles have good eyes... We knew this...
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Sparky evolution?
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The comparisons used are comparing modern animals to ancient ones. Yes, they are slow, but some animals were (are) slower than others.
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Trilobite eyes? Was that anomalocaris? No talk about flicker so far in insects. Good CGI, though. I hope that's not all they say about insect eyes. Pikaia!
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Thanks for the definition of what a vertebrate is....

More after the fold...

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That was a nice stab at ID. I approve. NOOOOOOOOO!!!! Not dinosaurs, please spend more time on insects, you know, the things that cover most of the Earth... Eyes were around long before dinosaurs, and already very well adapted.
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Neat way of figuring out how wide a field of binocular vision is.
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T. rex, how interesting :yawn:
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Those big, sexy dinosaurs are getting boring...
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Hang on, now we're talking about mammals as only being prey, but recent discoveries indicate that some mammals in the Jurassic preyed on young dinosaurs. Talk about mixing that one up... While some mammals may have been prey, it does not mean all of them were prey.
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Really sweeping generalizations rather annoy me.
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Bad puns... Very bad puns: "in the blink of an eye"? Come on, do something better.
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Aww, what cute kitties! My girlfriend says I can have a pet Jaguar! There, it's documented.
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This is one good commercial, first one, though: Evolve:Guts. This seems like a pretty good series so far, a bit childish, but pretty cool, anyway.
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"Non-avian dinosaurs," I do like that touch. But now they're going to talk about color vision.

Side note: I'm more like a gorilla... So I'm hairy, who cares?
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Ok, continuing--The evolution of primate eyes was pretty neat when talking about red being a cue to avoid said leaves. That was something I was not aware of.
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Depth perception as a means for brachiation. Something I knew, but still neat to point out.
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The show wasn't too bad, but it was way too human centered. I wish they would have talked about insect eyes far more, as well as the eyes of nautilus and pinhole eyes. They could have also talked about the pits in pit vipers. This is a form of secondary eye which I really wish they would have touched on. Good for beginners, but anyone that has taken more than two college courses in biology could probably go without seeing it.

Aquinas' Five Proofs

I think I'm going to have some fun with the Aquinas' five ways really quickly. I hear it quite a bit, and thanks to Jon for pointing out that it really isn't used seriously by anyone familiar with logic and science. And since it is the best-albeit still poor-I'm going to have some fun with it.

The First Way: Argument from Motion

1. Our senses prove that some things are in motion.

2. Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion.

3. Only an actual motion can convert a potential motion into an actual motion.

4. Nothing can be at once in both actuality and potentiality in the same respect (i.e., if both actual and potential, it is actual in one respect and potential in another).

5. Therefore nothing can move itself.

6. Therefore each thing in motion is moved by something else.

7. The sequence of motion cannot extend ad infinitum.

8. Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

The Second Way: Argument from Efficient Causes

1. We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world.

2. Nothing exists prior to itself.

3. Therefore nothing is the efficient cause of itself.

4. If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither does the thing that results.

5. Therefore if the first thing in a series does not exist, nothing in the series exists.

6. The series of efficient causes cannot extend ad infinitum into the past, for then there would be no things existing now.

7. Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

The Third Way: Argument from Possibility and Necessity (Reductio argument)

1. We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, that come into being and go out of being i.e., contingent beings.

2. Assume that every being is a contingent being.

3. For each contingent being, there is a time it does not exist.

4. Therefore it is impossible for these always to exist.

5. Therefore there could have been a time when no things existed.

6. Therefore at that time there would have been nothing to bring the currently existing contingent beings into existence.

7. Therefore, nothing would be in existence now.

8. We have reached an absurd result from assuming that every being is a contingent being.

9. Therefore not every being is a contingent being.

10. Therefore some being exists of its own necessity, and does not receive its existence from another being, but rather causes them. This all men speak of as God.

These arguments are all regressive, he then applies an arbitrary termination of his particular notion of "god" to the end of it.Based upon what we know of the universe and time, retrocausality is possible, and since time did not begin until the existence of matter, it is possible for the void of the universe at its "end" to be the cause to it's own beginning. It is also possible for many other things I shall not get into, but alas, god isn't the only ultimate explanation, so these arguments fail. It is also a good idea here to point out that the existence of something "before" the universe, because of the lack of time "before" matter and energy, is not even approaching rational or logical.

The Fourth Way: Argument from Gradation of Being

1. There is a gradation to be found in things: some are better or worse than others.

2. Predications of degree require reference to the “uttermost” case (e.g., a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest).

3. The maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus.

4. Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

I love this one, this is where Anselm got his idea of "god exists because we think god exists" which only proves that the IDEA is possible, not that the being is real. It also presupposes that existence is better than nonexistence. Personally, I wouldn't consider YHWH to be the epitome of anything other than spite, wrath, and war, not "goodness." In any case, the existence of an ideal does not prove the existence of something real.

The Fifth Way: Argument from Design

1. We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance.

2. Most natural things lack knowledge.

3. But as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence achieves goals by being directed by something intelligence.

4. Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

I lied, I think this one is my favorite, it's so hard to chose between these two, because I hear them all the time. This is the one that the ID proponents like to use, probably without even knowing it. This argument presupposes teleological direction, were teleology even approaching correct, I think those animals living in caves didn't need to first develop eyes, then lose them, in order to not have eyes. I also do not think that we first needed most of our DNA to be from retroviruses in order to exist. What we see around

Ring species

What are ring species?
I think it's about time someone explained ring species and how it blurs pretty much every species concept. Why are ring species so difficult to categorize? For starters, distant points of sample from the group are often genetically, phenotypically, and behaviorally distinct from one another while the closer the points of sample are to one another, the less distinct the two. The group does not have to be a "ring," in fact, three of the prime examples of "ring species" do not complete the ring. These three common examples are Herring Gulls, Greenish Warblers, and salamanders of the genus Ensatina. Today, I'll only be talking about Ensatina. The paper I'll be talking about can be found here.

The researches are using ring species to gain insights into speciation. They do this by comparing the hybridization cline and hybrid deficit. The idea is that the narrower and more pronounced the cline, the less genetic flow between the two species exists reinforcing the accumulation of non-compatible alleles.

Summation of the boring part:
They looked at a mid-ring secondary contact location since primary contact locations will have had no separation in gene flow. They are, therefor, looking at how hybridized the two subspecies are. By comparing known distinguishing markers including morphological and geneological data from those at extreme points from the cline to those near the midpoint of the cline on outwards, a map of the distribution of hybrids could be made. They also used mitochondrial DNA to establish maternal lineage of each salamander and nuclear DNA for comparison purposes. These various data were then graded 0 to 1 for morphological characteristics and 0-16 for genetic characteristics. They then collapsed the data into a one dimensional transect by using a best fit. Following this, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was assessed.

Good part:
The cline zone between the 1981 study and the 2001 study were nearly the same indicating cline stability with narrow zones of hybridization. There are also very few F1 hybrids (less than 1%), but near cline centers, backcrossed hybrids were above 50%. There are also high levels of linkage between parental alleles indicating very little gene flow between the groups and high selection against hybrids. The low number of F1 hybrids also indicates that either the two groups rarely cross-breed or F1 hybrids are prone to much higher mortality than either parent population.

Implications:
The absence of hybridization in some regions of the ring complex indicate that speciation, at least in some areas, has already been completed and these groups could easily be considered distinct species were they not in the ring complex. Evidence of frequent isolation and secondary contact between subspecies also indicates that selection plays a large role in compatibility upon secondary contact.

My comments:
We have known, for may years, that Ensatina species are highly divergent at distant points in the ring. We have also known that at many allopatric areas, subspecies frequently interbreed producing a stable zone of hybridization. The zone of this study, however, sheds new light on exactly how zones of secondary contact in partially speciated groups can behave. In this case, the zone of hybridization, being fairly narrow and very distinct indicates very little gene flow between species and strong negative selection of F1 hybrids which further reinforces the cline. Though the researchers did not directly say it, I would think that in a relatively short time, we may see complete distinction between these two groups. I would also consider this to be more incomplete peripatric speciation with secondary contact before complete speciation. In any event, Ensatina and other ring species are continuing to give us insight into the process of speciation. I wonder if the idiots at Conservapedia are going to try and discredit this paper, or if Luskin is going rant and scream about something missing, perhaps the specific genes?

Game time!

I would encourage anyone to reply to this thread with an argument for the existence of non-physical entities (gods, your particular god, spirits, souls, etc.) Which has not been already destroyed by other philosophers, scientists, or itself. This is a challenge, as I do not think it can be done. Here are the rules:
1) it must be an argument FOR your side, not an argument AGAINST something else, the reason for this is simple, you are automatically presenting a false dichotomy, which is not a valid argument.
2) it must be clear and concise, verbosity is not permitted
3) it must not employ any other logical fallacies
4) if you present a completely flawless argument which cannot be explained by myself, a philosopher, or another scientist in 24 hours, you win.

Oh, Jonny boy...

Is Louisiana really as backwards as this guy thinks? It's no surprise John G. West is happy about the Louisiana Science Education Act. I mean, he is, after all, one of the senior fellows of the Discovery Institute, which has, so far, not really discovered anything. I have yet to read a scientific paper published by them which provides valid evidence of their claim that life must have been designed. I know they haven't done this because I've read EVERY PDF paper they have available. It is nothing but pseudointellectual jargon full of invalid arguments based upon faulty assumptions. So I think it's time to tear into Mr. West.

Yet in many schools today, instruction about controversial scientific issues is closer to propaganda than education. Teaching about global warming is about as nuanced as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Discussions about human sexuality recycle the junk science of biologist Alfred Kinsey and other ideologically driven researchers. And lessons about evolution present a caricature of modern evolutionary theory that papers over problems and fails to distinguish between fact and speculation.

Of course they caricature modern evolutionary theory. Your stories do, too. The reason is for simplicity. It would take YEARS of education to teach someone all the evidence for evolutionary theory. Your's, on the other hand, is caricatured much like a piñata. Hollow but for the things which taste good, but rot your teeth. In this case, it rots your understanding of biology and your brain, but it keeps with dogmatic beliefs...

In these areas, the “scientific” view is increasingly offered to students as a neat package of dogmatic assertions that just happens to parallel the political and cultural agenda of the Left.

I'm sorry, but perhaps it's time for you to revise your beliefs if the truth is offensive.

Real science, however, is a lot more messy — and interesting — than a set of ideological talking points. Most conservatives recognize this truth already when it comes to global warming.

Really, so why is it that so little is being done? And just because they acknowledge one theory is true (finally), this doesn't necessarily mean that these people are smart. What it means is that what scientists have known for years (the Earth is warming), and was denied by conservatives for years, was FINALLY accepted by them. This shows that scientists do, sometimes, know what they are talking about. Why do you think we don't know what we're talking about when it comes to evolutionary biology? Your example doesn't show that conservatives are smart, it shows that they are years behind scientific knowledge...

They know that whatever consensus exists among scientists about global warming, legitimate questions remain about its future impact on the environment, its various causes, and the best policies to combat it.

And what scientists don't agree with evolutionary biology? Is it because of some biased assumption? Is it because they have money involved in subverting the scientific community? (cough, Behe, cough)

They realize that efforts to suppress conflicting evidence and dissenting interpretations related to global warming actually compromise the cause of good science education rather than promote it.

Could they, you know, keep up with the science? They would have known global warming since the 1990s. Hell, many geologists knew about it before that. Again, you're not being completely honest, because there IS no evidence. I read every one of your papers, your "evidence" can just as easily be explained by other means without the need of a "designer."

The effort to suppress dissenting views on global warming is a part of a broader campaign to demonize any questioning of the “consensus” view on a whole range of controversial scientific issues — from embryonic stem-cell research to Darwinian evolution — and to brand such interest in healthy debate as a “war on science.”

There will never be a consensus in science, that's partially why it works so well. We are constantly improving our understanding of things. Teaching what we know is useful, teaching what we are unsure of is not useful. We KNOW animals evolve, we KNOW one of the mechanisms is natural selection, we KNOW that another mechanism is genetic drift, we KNOW DNA is a heritable material, we KNOW new traits can arise via evolution, we KNOW how these traits arise, we KNOW all animals on Earth now share a common ancestor, we KNOW lots of things and with what we know, we speculate, propose hypotheses, and test these hypotheses. With these new observations, we apply those data to modern theories to see if it refines any of our understanding. THAT is science.

The Louisiana Science Education Act offers such teachers a modest measure of protection. Under the law, school districts may permit teachers to “use supplementary textbooks and other instructional materials to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner.”

Yes, I'm sure these materials will be provided by the Discovery Institute, also...

The act is not a license for teachers to do anything they want. Instruction must be “objective,” inappropriate materials may be vetoed by the state board of education, and the law explicitly prohibits teaching religion in the name of science, stating that its provisions “shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine.”

Yea, but will it be religion in the guise of pseudoscience?

Of course, that hasn’t stopped the usual suspects from denouncing the bill as a nefarious plot to sneak religion into the classroom. The good news is that the disinformation campaign proved a massive failure in Louisiana. Only three members of the state legislature voted against the measure, which attracted nearly universal support from both political parties.

I never said our legislators and governor were intelligent. Not once have I ever said that of many politicians... I doubt any of them would know "objective" aside from the definition as "main goal" when used by military leaders...

Efforts to prevent local scientists from supporting the bill also failed. At a legislative hearing in May, three college professors (two biologists and one chemist) testified in favor of the bill, specifically challenging the claim that there are no legitimate scientific criticisms of Neo-Darwinism, the modern theory of evolution that accounts for biological complexity through an undirected process of natural selection acting on random mutations.

It's the Modern Synthesis, Neo-Darwinism doesn't tell the whole picture. It also implies that Darwin had a huge play in it, implying that it is rehashed old ideas. Too bad the Modern Synthesis isn't that simple. Is that why you can't understand it, Mr. West?

Facts have implications. If it really is a “fact” that the evolution of life was an unplanned process of chance and necessity (as Neo-Darwinism asserts), then that fact has consequences for how we view life.

Well, it is true that the evolution of life was unplanned, but I would not say evolution is by chance or necessity. It is a complex interplay of plasticity, naturally occurring genetic variation, which is SELECTED for based upon evolvability (which relates to developmental plasticity). This is a straw man argument, IDiot...

In a Darwinian worldview, even God himself cannot know how evolution will turn out — which is why theistic evolutionist Kenneth Miller argues that human beings are a mere “happenstance” of evolutionary history, and that if evolution played over again it might produce thinking mollusks rather than us.

Shouldn't this give you pause? You know, that Kenneth Miller - a theist - is convinced that evolution happens? Lenski put forth a pretty cool paper recently involving evolutionary probability and what leads to it... I think Lenski put another nail in the hollow coffin of ID. Also, animals with large brains are not a teleological result of evolution. It is a result of selective pressures, if they select for larger brains, then larger brains will result.

Today, science is typically portrayed as self-correcting, but it took decades for most evolutionary biologists to disassociate themselves from the junk science of eugenics. For years, the most consistent critics of eugenics were traditionalist Roman Catholics, who were denounced by scientists for letting their religion stand in the way of scientific progress. The implication was that religious people had no right to speak out on public issues involving science.

Roman Catholics who killed millions during the crusades? The ones that helped Hitler? Those Catholics were not convinced of eugenics? They were practicing eugenics! Also, I would like to call into question what makes eugenics wrong other than our social contract? It is a subjective idea that killing humans is bad. I am actually in favor of culling humans to lower numbers, not based upon some arbitrary race, but by how useful the individual is to society, how much they can benefit society, and whether the job they do for society is useful. In other words, instead of support life-long criminals and multiple repeat offenders which are simply a detriment to society, let's study their brains, their genes, their cells, figure out what makes them tick. If it is genetic, sterilize them, if it is developmental, prevent them from raising children. If it is a combination of the two, as it seems to be with modern evidence, sterilize them anyway. Now, the part about eugenics which WAS incorrect is that differing races are somehow "inferior" or "superior" to one another. THIS was the major part which was incorrect.

That was also a justification for a bias. Instead of simply saying that some group was, in hindsight, wrong about a certain thing, you should explain WHY scientists are wrong now, which you still haven't done. You are simply saying that "hey, these people made a mistake, look, see? They're wrong again! Oh, I can't support that claim, but they are!" Even though pretty much every practicing scientist from the early 1900s is dead or at least no longer a scientist. What makes you think the current generation of scientists are equally wrong about something which HAS LOTS of evidence to support it? Quit bitching and produce evidence, this is all we ask.

More on HIV

I came across a very funny comment here. I'll just get to the meat of the issue.

The findings state that HIV just happens to attach to the black host without any resistance; as if the disease was created just for blacks. This should now be the focal point how one race of people hit the HIV lottery.

No, it demonstrates how genes interact with diseases, it's not so much a race issue as a gene issue. It doesn't matter what your race is, it's about what allele you possess.

This needs to be further researched because I truly believe this disease is killing all of us because someone had a problem with one race.

Really, you think that the first cases of HIV, which go back as far as 1959, were caused by a person designing it? Do you also think that this supergenius geneticist at about the same time as we determined the structure of DNA? That's kind of silly...

So if it is man made which probability agrees it is than we definitely have the capability to find the cure or release the cure or whatever it takes for US ALL to no longer be at RISK!

I wish it was this simple... But even if it IS manmade, if your assumption is correct, the person that designed this virus is probably long deceased as he/she designed it before 1959, so unless he or she was less than 30 at the time of this, it is pretty much guaranteed he or she is dead.

Bottomline this disease would not be smart enough to only want to attach and thrive best through a black host; unless it was genetically engineered to do just that.

It's not "smart," it does what it does via the basic interactions of it's molecules... It wasn't designed...

By the way how is this not headline news, but 1200 people with food poisoning can outweigh the 40,000 new cases of African-American HIV victims that will die from this disease in this society.

You should study some social psychology; the 1200 people with food poisoning are near us, and it immediately puts us at risk, HIV does not, provided we modify our own behaviors to account for this virus; it is easier to avert than food poisoning. We must eat to live, we don't have to shoot heroin with contaminated needles, we don't have to have unprotected sex without medical exams and long-standing relationships, we can even have a long-standing, monogamous relationship and have children knowing full well that neither individual has this blood-born/sexually transmitted virus.

There is no way a world where promiscuity runs rapids in all societies should blacks who only make up 12% of the world's population should attribute for more than 70% of new HIV cases.

Yes, well, it originated in Africa, and while I think we should try to find a treatment, your harping about it being a conspiracy doesn't help matters, it simply confuses the issue.

Once again I'm asking whoever is reading this article and understands the magnitude of this message please forward it along. This is not just OUR scientist fight, this is OUR fight. OUR family members and OUR friends are dying from this disease and they don't care why they got it, they just want to know how to get rid of it.

And perhaps here is the issue; it cannot be cured as of yet, we are working on it...

So, before another dollar gets spent on some research that is driven towards a global cure for mans most recent plague than do me a favor and save your findings because we are still burying OUR sons and daughters, OUR brothers and sisters, OUR mothers and fathers and worst of all OUR babies and elderly are dying from this lobotomy created disease.

Lobotomy created? Do you mean laboratory? Perhaps you should modify your behavior as the rest of the world has done to cope with the means by which this disease is transmitted rather than crying about how horrible it is.

PLEASE MANKIND we don't deserve to have a weapon of mass destruction pointed directly in to all off OUR bedrooms please let's stand for something.

You are insinuating that 1) it is a weapon, which I have already explained why it was not created by humans and 2) it's so horrible for you because you can't prevent it, which I've already explained to you that you CAN.

I do not pity anyone that gets this disease if he or she has access to a computer and internet. I do, however, pity those who are uneducated in the matter or contracted the disease due to circumstances beyond their control, i.e. infected blood transfusions, rape, malevolent use of infected needles, etc.. I would also like to tell you to please shut up when it comes to HIV research, because you clearly are ignorant of thousands of bits of evidence which would enlighten you to what HIV is, how it is transmitted, and what can be done to prevent it. Were it manmade, someone very stupid designed it to be transmitted via bodily fluids instead of specifically targeting genetic markers present only in the target population and spreading rapidly by contact.

If you would like to find out what I'm doing to continue this movement please e-mail me @ francwaa1981@aol.com. I am only one man but I have several thousand people who believe in the eradication of this disease just as strongly as you and I do.

What exactly ARE you doing besides telling researchers to quit looking for a cure?