There Was No First Human

by cofty 266 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  bohm

  Viv: For instance, statistics is an incredibly useful tool, but it works within margins of error that would give a physicists or someone working in fluid dynamics a heart attack.

  As a practitioner, I would say statistics is a common description of one or more mathematical subfields and a science of how they are applied in various situations.

  The definition is very vague because statistics is an umbrella term which cover many different types of practice some which are in mutual conflict in various ways.

  At any rate, the core of most (I cant think of a counter example right now) areas of statistics is pure math and is only inexact in the sense it may be applied approximatively. A lot of good physics, incidently including much fluid dynamics, boil down to statistical considerations cf. the role of statistical mechanics and for the sake of example it's application to turbulence in fluid dynamics. Scientific inference, i would claim, also fall within statistics.

  At any rate a misapplication of statistics or crude approximation may give anyone a heart attack, however the same hold for any misapplication or crude approximation made within any other physical field. As an example one could consider a newtonian approximation to a non-newtonian fluid, or laminar assumptions to a turbulent flow and so on in fluid dynamics.
• 

  Viviane

  It's why I gravitated toward computer science instead.

  I actually work in the computer sciences, you would be amazed how squishy they can be sometimes also. With all of the logging, debbuing code, etc., it's very unlike life sciences in our abilty to determined what happened, that can be very easy (given the right expertise).

  However, predicting the future in computing can be very difficult. By that I don't mean predicting what the next hot technology will be, I mean predicting resources consumed. Right now I am on a conference call working to determine the data growth patterns for a gigantic medical university for a solution design we are working on. Basically, it's predicting the future, be a prognosticator, making educated guesses, taking some hard data and trends and figuring how and when it will or might change. A LOT of assumptions are made and various models are developed until it "feels" right.
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  Viviane

  Bohm, thanks for the update. I neither work in statistics (or a sub field) or in engineering or fluid dynamics!
• 

  atrapado

  Viviane you asked why draw the line where I did. It was a suggestion. The line was drawed becaused it fit the data and a pattern was found. Why use the definition of species when is flawed? You have horses and donkeys mating and some of the offsprings are not always sterile. If you take the definition of species that they can only mate with their own species and produce only that species then mathematically you could prove that a species could NEVER produce another species therefore prooving evolution doesn't exits. Since we know that is not the case the definition of species if flawed. Start with a wrong premise no wonder is impossible to find the first human(s).

  cofty you say " It's not really a "current limitation", it's intrinsic to the task of trying to put the continuum of life into neat boxes."

  That was my point why put a continuum in neat boxes why not redefine them and make the models fit better? Sure it might be more complex but it could help explain things better. But maybe someday you'll become less close minded and find out there are more ways than one to look at something and more than one solution to most problems, and if we all limited ourselves to what the science says now and what other scientists have written down there would never be any more breakthroughs. My suggestion was why not do it differently, your answer: because it will not work. OK I understand you now all the infinite number of models have been tested and they don't work, I am glad we clear that up it might save someone a lot of time when they think about trying something different.

  Viviane usually programs are squishy(have bugs) because we don't have the same standards as other disiplines and we get away with it. Compare a bridge collapsing vs a program crashing. Some fields required very robous and bug free coding but those are few.

  Thanks Apognophos I was beginning to think no matter how I try to explain myself I failed.
• 

  cofty

  My suggestion was why not do it differently, your answer: because it will not work.

  Your suggestion was not only not right - it was not even wrong.

  Your objection made no rational sense. We explained why every way possible but your fingers are in your ears.

  Maybe one day you will take the time to read some science and come back and apologise. I doubt it.
• 

  atrapado

  cofty You explained why every way possible 10 pages to discrived every possible way. Keep telling that to yourself if it makes you feel better and sleep better at night. Very few things are absolute and when people start using absolutes like you "every way possible" there is just no point the person is to dense. Apology for what? If I am wrong I'll admit I am wrong but why the apology? Just because everyone believes that something is impossible it doesn't make it so. Go read on P versus NP problems. You'll find out most think they are not equal. But because there is no formal proof if you suggest either side nobody is going to tell you how stupid or go read until you agree with them.

  You act as if there is a formal proof which so far I haven't seen if you can show it to me I'll tell you I am wrong and you are right. But seems like your technique is to talk down to people that don't agree with you and ignore what they said or you just don't understand what they said. Your formal proof so far has been a series of objections. Objections are not proof maybe in your mind they are.
• 

  Apognophos

  I actually work in the computer sciences, you would be amazed how squishy they can be sometimes also. With all of the logging, debbuing code, etc., it's very unlike life sciences in our abilty to determined what happened, that can be very easy (given the right expertise).

  Ah, I didn't know you were in the field. As it turns out, I have to eat my words, because your comment reminded me of what I'm working on at the moment, which is a complex network application. It's quite painful to diagnose problems when you can't use the debugger and have to deal with varying network conditions and issues that span multiple computer systems. It does often feel like I'm trying to get a grip on something slippery while tracking down problems. It's certainly not what I thought I was signing up for when I started learning programming!

  That was my point why put a continuum in neat boxes why not redefine them and make the models fit better? Sure it might be more complex but it could help explain things better.

  Perhaps the answer to the species problem will be a way of describing a species by the relative nature of its genome, and as the genome shifts, the name of the animal will shift (or perhaps a version number can be added to the end -- today we have an animal called the rabbit 1.0, but in 50 years it might be the rabbit 1.03). I know that scientists are already defining animals by their genetic relationship to each other, so perhaps it's just more data that's needed for this method to work.
• 

  jgnat

  I apologize for coming to this late in the game. Keep in mind I have not oriented myself to the context of this conversation.

  I classify for a living. You'd think classification of colors black or white, red or blue, would be fairly easy. But what about tribes that only have two words for color? Can they distinguish fire-engine red from chartreuse, for instance? It turns out they can, with similar precision to those of us with multitudinous words.

  http://journals.lib.washington.edu/index.php/acro/article/viewFile/13777/11891

  It turns out that we pick a representative object, say, to represent "furniture" (e.g. chair) and then as various fuzzy exceptions are offered (e.g. step-stool, husband), we decide if the item is in or out. As we get finer and finer in our distinction, we modify our original classification, refining the definition, and specifically including or excluding exceptions. There comes a point, however, where the classifications break down. Fuzzy borders.

  Following my daughter around at dog shows, I see these failures in classification. The Italian Greyhound for instance, shows in the toy group, even though physiologically and mentally it is a sight-hound. The Schnauzer shows with the terriers, though it is tempermentally and physiologically not. But its coat and beard make it similar, superficially, to the the terriers.

  I came across our fuzziness in classification in this insightful book:

  http://www.everythingismiscellaneous.com/
• 

  jgnat

  For Apognophos,

  http://tolweb.org/Life_on_Earth/1

  From that site, "...recent evidence for ancient lateral transfers of genes indicates that a highly complex model is needed to adequately represent the phylogenetic relationships among the major lineages of Life."
• 

  atrapado

  Apognophos sucks to debugg without a debugger. And if is a race condition even your log can cause the problem to disappeared turn log off and reapers how fun!

  I don't see anything wrong with your suggestion of redefining species. Maybe that is the problem we are trying to redefine species and that is not the way the game works. We need play by their definitions only otherwise we are cheating.