Posts by bohm

6

Another step towards artificial life: Evolution of molecules in laboratory

by bohm in

jw
friends

hey!.

i just read this today, a professor gerald joyce has created small, very simple 'dead' molecules that are able to replicate themselves if placed amongst other dead molecules and (here it gets interesting) are able to accumulate mutations and become better at replicating themselves.

joyce estimate about 30 bits of information is passed along to each 'generation.

bohm

Bonnie: I think the point is that very simple molecules can replicate themselves from even simpler molecules in a way that mutation and selection (the building-blocks of evolution) can act on them and in turn make 'better' replicating molecules. It is not life (per my definition, but life is extremely hard to define), but it begins to sound life-ish. You are right that it is an important question if the 'simpler' building blocks could exist in nature (noone really knows what nature was like back then), but science is all about baby-steps.

Aniron: Yes lets turn it into a english class!. First off - there is also artificial growth hormone and artificial sweetener, so i really, really have a hard time seing your point. Secondly: Yes created!. Look it up on wiktionary, it is a quite common word in english and you may want to learn it. I even think it is in the bible. Thirdly: So if scientists showed how abiogenesis could explain a cell, and even made it work in the laboratory, you would be indifferent because a cell cannot think. meh.

BTS: True... To me, i think the splitting point between life and not life will be when/if scientists make something that has some kind of membrane around it, and a RNA/DNA-like structure inside it that evolution can work on and perhaps some kind of 'stuff' going on inside it to. But the border between dead and alive is a very fuzzy thing, i think it has been the source of many an edit war on wikipedia.

Zoiks: The way i see it, a couple of years ago the difference in chromosome count between apes and humans was seen as an argument against evolution. Today it is a very strong argument for. I really hope this stuff can have a similar effect and in the long run, the 'scientific' part of the intelligent design movement is facing a collapse because fewer and fewer actual scientists can play along with the 'strong' interpretation of creation.

6

Another step towards artificial life: Evolution of molecules in laboratory

by bohm in

jw
friends

hey!.

i just read this today, a professor gerald joyce has created small, very simple 'dead' molecules that are able to replicate themselves if placed amongst other dead molecules and (here it gets interesting) are able to accumulate mutations and become better at replicating themselves.

joyce estimate about 30 bits of information is passed along to each 'generation.

bohm

Hey!

I just read this today, a professor Gerald Joyce has created small, very simple 'dead' molecules that are able to replicate themselves if placed amongst other dead molecules and (here it gets interesting) are able to accumulate mutations and become better at replicating themselves. Joyce estimate about 30 bits of information is passed along to each 'generation. Read more about it here:

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/3325/life-evolution-a-test-tube

or from his website here:

http://www.scripps.edu/mb/joyce/Lincolnjoycenw.htm

It is important to keep in mind that even though the molecules are replicating and are able to accumulate positive mutations, they are not alive - ie. they have no metabolism and no cell membranes, but i still think this is a very important step. It is known that Micelles are able to form spontainously replicate in the right enviroment so there is at least a candidate for a primitive membrane, and allready now people are getting self-assembled ribozymes to do things in the laboratory, and if they were able to do similar stuff like Joyces molecules it would be very interesting indeed.

The next 50 years are going to be very interesting. Personally, if you had asked me 5 years ago i would have said life is so unlikely it is properly a 1-planet-in-a-galaxy-event. Today, it does not seem impossible it will happend in the laboratory over the next 100 years. Exiting times. wonder how this will go down with those who believe in creation and nothing else.

45

To athiests who hate God

by EndofMysteries in

question, if this is true, in the book of enoch chapter 10:11-12, "all the sons of men shall not perish in consequence of every secret, by which the watchers have destroyed, and which they have taught, their offspring.12all the earth has been corrupted by the effects of the teaching of azazyel.

to him therefore ascribe the whole crime.

if that is god's truth, and your only accountable for your own wickedness and actions, would you feel guilty for your accusations against god?

bohm

IF Thor and Odin exist, would you feel guilty for not being a warrior fit to be with them in Valhallah, and help them in the end of the days against Jetterne? Think about it, they need you!

The answer is that you think its a stupid question i only ask to piss you off, because you think Thor and Odin is so far out bullshit you will never accept the premise of the question. I feel the same way about the genesis because of Noahs ark, amongst other things.

oh, and by the way - that title! 'do you hate god' is a way some christians justify that atheists are somehow bad people! Do you hate Odin and Thor, or do you just not believe in them? How can I hate something i dont think exist?

16

My Uber-Dub sister is depressed !

by wobble in

despite being in what she insisted to me was "the best way of life" my oldest sister has a bad case of depression.. i know on here, jwn, we tend to almost laugh at the number of dubs who suffer from depression, and blame the cult , which attitude may have a good deal of truth in it, i still feel that i would like to help her in some way and do not know for sure how to.. getting her out of the cult is not going to happen, and any lessening of her blind faith i feel would be dangerous for her.. can any of you good folk on here offer any advice.

the trigger for her problem is the fact that her husband is seriously ill, and may not pull through, but i believe she must have an underlying problem that the present circumstance has brought to the surface.

and she needs to be a positive support for him at this time, and cannot be.. here in the u.k the family doctor tends to prescribe some pills and see how you get on, if you don't top yourself, you can go back and he might try some more or different pills,beyond that not much is offered.. ideas?.

bohm

pm

13

The two stories of "The Flood"

by Doug Mason in

in genesis, the two stories of "the flood" have been combined into one.. each story was created by separate groups for their own theological purpose, and with very different attitudes towards god.. i have provided a scan from a book that untangles these two accounts.

http://www.filesend.net/download.php?f=160b02654b38df6311d38f4932294874.

you need to wait for 20 seconds before the "download" button appears.. doug.

bohm

Thanks Doug! Interesting read. I must get that book when i have the time!

322

God and Suffering

by AK - Jeff in

a few weeks back, in the midst of the haiti tragedy, much discussion took place in cyberland about the tolerance [or indeed the insistence on] suffering by a loving god.

the furor over haiti has settled a bit [as unfortunately most tragedy is wont to do far too quickly in the human mind], but this persistent matter continues to chew at my subconscience.

today i came across this:.

bohm

BTS: If we conclude that every innate human desire corresponds to a real object, and that we have an innate desire for unlimited good, then there must be an object of that desire

Yes IF we conclude that. But so far no proof, only a handfull of examples. Here are some counterexamples: If a kid had an innate desire for a cake the size of germany, would there exist such a cake? what about Santaclaus? If and mathematican had an innate desire for a general algebraic solution to 5'th order polynomials, would that mean it existed? (mathematicans did have such a desire for centuries untill Galois came along...) and if i have an innate desire for funny stuff, does that mean there is an ultimate 'funnygod'?

18

To all you non-believers... PROOF of the great flood of the bible.

by whereami in

jw
friends

dubunk this you spawns of satan!!!!!!!.

.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cccagakolsi&feature=player_embedded#.

bohm

AWF: Its not that bad from THAT point of view. If each man/woman had 10 surviving children per generation (hey, if they got 300 years old they could easily do that kind of shit!) it would only take 10 generations to go to 10 billion people. I am mentioning this because some asshat creationist will show you a graph where a jury-rigged exponential population growth will 'proove' there were only a handfull of people alive in Noahs days.

But there are plenty of other huge problems - a population of less than 1000 individuals typically need special breeding programs to survive, for starters. Talkorigins has an excelent introduction to the subject.

40

GENETICS- CREATIONISTS need not be INTIMIDATED.

by hooberus in

genetics- creationists need not be intimidated.. .

internet evolutionists almost universally and repetitiously proclaim that modern neo-darwinian evolutionary theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and that there is no evidence for biblical creation (or even mere intelligent design) for that matter.

they will dogmatically claim that evolution receives universal support from all the real scientists and all the facts from genetics, biology, geology, paleontology, and every other ology that one can think of.

bohm

BTS, Hooberus: I will agree to some extent. Junk DNA (i use it here to describe parts of DNA which does not seem to code to any proteines or serve any function) is predicted by evolution to be highly nonrandom and (primarely) that it *must* be there otherwise evolution is false (so if one could show parts of the human DNA did not serve a function, evolution would have gotten a prediction right, yah!). BTS: I have not thought about the 'genetic warehouse' view. Are you aware of any experiments one could perform to determine if the junk DNA indeed is a 'genetic warehouse', or if it is just various leftovers from retrovirus and other evolutionary processes.

(Evolution allow 'junk' dna to act as a warehouse, but i understand you to imply that the junk dna didnt get there from evolution in the first place)

40

GENETICS- CREATIONISTS need not be INTIMIDATED.

by hooberus in

genetics- creationists need not be intimidated.. .

internet evolutionists almost universally and repetitiously proclaim that modern neo-darwinian evolutionary theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and that there is no evidence for biblical creation (or even mere intelligent design) for that matter.

they will dogmatically claim that evolution receives universal support from all the real scientists and all the facts from genetics, biology, geology, paleontology, and every other ology that one can think of.

bohm

hooberus: I cannot speak of all the resources you posted since i have not read many of them. HOWEVER:...

Dr. Sanford base many on his claims on a particular simulation he wrote. WHENEVER you write a simulation, you want to VALIDATE it to make sure you didnt make a mistake. To my knowledge Dr. Sanford never validate his model. Speaking as someone who has read countless papers on various simulations this is a giant red flag. Its like saying a particular type of drug works without testing it. Sanford appears to do it for good reasons - his simulation is not compatible with the real world, and make some unphysical assumptions about evolution so that it HAVE to give poor results. Furthermore, when i examined the simulation, it contained a rather grave bug in the code that controlled how surviving species was selected.

The worst problem about Dr. Sanfords results remain that his simulation repeatly predict that things such as Mice and Flies (with a far shorter life-span than humans) would all be dead by now - Dr. Sanford is a young earth creationist, by the way.

Secondly, WHENEVER you attack the mechanism you want to keep in mind that evolution is a well known optimization strategy that is used in computer science and engineering every day. It works. Its that simple. It cant be argued, you can only argue if it can produce as complicated things as life. To make matters worse, non-trivial adaptions has been seen in several laberatory experiments.

37

Newbie here, need some input

by FollowerOfSet in

jw
friends

i wanted to introduce myself, and need some advice.. i dissassociated myself back in 1995. haven't had much of anything to do with my family since then.

they are all witnesses, and very dedicated to their beliefs.

so after 15 years without a simple howdy from them, now they are coming around again and being very nice, but it reminds me of when people would have parts in the ministry school...it seems rehearsed and fake.

bohm

FOS:

I would very much recommend you to read Stephen Hassans books ("Releasing the bonds" is a very good place to start) or something else on mind-control (you may start on the psychology-section of freeminds.org to get a feel of the kind of information they contain). Its basically about how to talk with family members who are in high-control groups, how to avoid they go into 'cult' mode, and ultimately how to get them out.

I wish you the best of luck... I dont think you did yourself any harm by crying in front of you mom. much better than throwing doctrine or scripture against her which she would just have used against you later. ('he left the truth, now he is an evil apostate. dont go near him <name of your sister>')