Posts by Vidqun

148

Who designed cancer?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

one thing i regret, is not listening to the questions in my head whilst a jw.

one i didn't ask until years after leaving was....who designed disease?

of course the first thing to realise is the complexity of disease, the histology, pathology and aetiology.

Vidqun

You know EP, I missed you. Where were you? Let me help you out here. See, I can also do the marker thing now. Do you know what "extinct" means? Let's go to Wiki:

The Neanderthal, sometimes spelled Neandertal, is an extinct member of the Homogenus known from Pleistocenespecimens found in Europe and parts of western and central Asia . Neanderthals are classified either as a subspecies of Homo sapiens (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) or as a separate human species (Homo neanderthalensis). [1]

However, an analysis of a first draft of the Neanderthal genome by the same team released in May 2010 indicates interbreeding may have occurred. [3][4] "Those of us who live outside Africa carry a little Neanderthal DNA in us," said Pääbo, who led the study. "The proportion of Neanderthal-inherited genetic material is about 1 to 4 percent. It is a small but very real proportion of ancestry in non-Africans today," says Dr. David Reich of Harvard Medical School in Boston, who worked on the study. This research compared the genome of the Neanderthals to five modern humans from China, France, sub-Saharan Africa, and Papua New Guinea. The finding is that about 1 to 4 percent of the genes of the non-Africans came from Neanderthals, compared to the baseline defined by the two Africans. This indicates a gene flow from Neanderthals to modern humans, i.e., interbreeding between the two populations. Since the three non-African genomes show a similar proportion of Neanderthal sequences, the interbreeding must have occurred early in the migration of modern humans out of Africa, perhaps in the Middle East . No evidence for gene flow in the direction from modern humans to Neanderthals was found. The latter result would not be unexpected if contact occurred between a small colonizing population of modern humans and a much larger resident population of Neanderthals. A very limited amount of interbreeding could explain the findings, if it occurred early enough in the colonization process. [3]

Are you sure of your facts? The author of the Wiki-article is less sure. Let's see:

While interbreeding is viewed as the most parsimonious interpretation of the genetic discoveries, the authors point out they cannot conclusively rule out an alternative scenario, in which the source population of non-African modern humans was already more closely related to Neanderthals than other Africans were, due to ancient genetic divisions within Africa. [3]

148

Who designed cancer?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

one thing i regret, is not listening to the questions in my head whilst a jw.

one i didn't ask until years after leaving was....who designed disease?

of course the first thing to realise is the complexity of disease, the histology, pathology and aetiology.

Vidqun

Agreed. You're right TD, now that you mention it, one also finds a cross between a lion (Panthera leo) and a tiger (Panthera tigris) = liger. Parents of the same genus, but different species. That's the proof I need. Back to the drawing board.

148

Who designed cancer?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

one thing i regret, is not listening to the questions in my head whilst a jw.

one i didn't ask until years after leaving was....who designed disease?

of course the first thing to realise is the complexity of disease, the histology, pathology and aetiology.

Vidqun

Don't know what he did? I wasn't there.

148

Who designed cancer?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

one thing i regret, is not listening to the questions in my head whilst a jw.

one i didn't ask until years after leaving was....who designed disease?

of course the first thing to realise is the complexity of disease, the histology, pathology and aetiology.

Vidqun

Here's some interesting reading for those interested in the subject: Investigations of the modes of natural selection and how they account for adaptation are Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, new ed. (2000); Michael R. Rose and George V. Lauder (eds.), Adaptation (1996); and Timothy A. Mousseau, Barry Sinervo, and John A. Endler (eds.), Adaptive Genetic Variation in the Wild (2000). The adaptive evolution of finches in the Galapagos is the subject of Peter R. Grant, Ecology and Evolution of Darwin's Finches (1986, reissued 1999); this topic is presented in a popular version by Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time (1994). Francisco J. Ayala, Population and Evolutionary Genetics: A Primer (1982), provides an introduction to the genetics of the evolutionary process. More advanced and mathematically demanding works are Philip W. Hedrick, Genetics of Populations, 2nd ed. (2000); and Daniel L. Hartl and Andrew G. Clark, Principles of Population Genetics, 3rd ed. (1997). The origin of species is the subject of Michael J.D. White, Modes of Speciation (1978); and of the more comprehensive Ernst Mayr, Animal Species and Evolution (1963; also published as Population, Species, and Evolution, 1970), which is a classic work. G. Ledyard Stebbins, Flowering Plants: Evolution Above the Species Level (1974), discusses plant speciation and evolution. A useful textbook is Jerry A. Coyne and H. Allen Orr, Speciation (2004).

148

Who designed cancer?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

one thing i regret, is not listening to the questions in my head whilst a jw.

one i didn't ask until years after leaving was....who designed disease?

of course the first thing to realise is the complexity of disease, the histology, pathology and aetiology.

Vidqun

Yes, I deny speciation. It cannot be proved. It's a theory, and will remain a theory until proven. As I've mentioned before, I believe in the concept of adaptation, whereas I disagree with evolution. Here I strictly follow Dictionary defenitions (Webster). I won't bore you with these.

148

Who designed cancer?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

one thing i regret, is not listening to the questions in my head whilst a jw.

one i didn't ask until years after leaving was....who designed disease?

of course the first thing to realise is the complexity of disease, the histology, pathology and aetiology.

Vidqun

If you mean natural selection as the nonrandom process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers? Yes, then I do believe in natural selection.

148

Who designed cancer?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

one thing i regret, is not listening to the questions in my head whilst a jw.

one i didn't ask until years after leaving was....who designed disease?

of course the first thing to realise is the complexity of disease, the histology, pathology and aetiology.

Vidqun

Like I said, a jump in species would be a turnup for the books. A jump of genus, unheard of. In my day species went by this definition: " A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring." Nowadays they use DNA, morphology and ecological niche to classify organisms more accurately. Quite a few bacteria were reclassified according to their DNA.

148

Who designed cancer?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

one thing i regret, is not listening to the questions in my head whilst a jw.

one i didn't ask until years after leaving was....who designed disease?

of course the first thing to realise is the complexity of disease, the histology, pathology and aetiology.

Vidqun

Cofty, for your attention. Thanks again to Wikipedia under "species" and "genus" for those that are interested. There's a nice diagram, but I am unable to reproduce it. If there's a random crossing between "family", "genus" and "species" you would have a "big buggerup" (Armageddon in Pidgin English):

The hierarchy of biological classification 's eight major taxonomic ranks , which is an example of definition by genus and differentia . A genus contains one or more species. Intermediate minor rankings are not shown.

In biology , a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank . A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are often used, such as similarity of DNA, morphology or ecological niche. Presence of specific locally adapted traits may further subdivide species into subspecies .

Species that are believed to have the same ancestors are grouped together, and this group is called a genus . A species can only belong to one genus that it was grouped into. The belief is best checked by a similarity of their DNA , but for practical reasons, other similar properties are used. For plants similarities of flowers are used. All species are given a two part name (a "binomial name"). The first part of a binomial name is the generic name , the genus of the species. The second part is either the specific name (a term used only in zoology, never in botany, for the second part of a binomial) or the specific epithet (the term always used in botany, which can also be used in zoology). For example, Boa constrictor, which is commonly called by its binomial name, and is one of four species of the Boa genus. The first part of the name is capitalized, and the second part has a lower case. The two part name is written in italics.

A usable definition of the word "species" and reliable methods of identifying particular species are essential for stating and testing biological theories and for measuring biodiversity , though other taxonomic levels such as families may be considered in broad scale studies. [1] Extinct species known only from fossils are generally difficult to assign precise taxonomic rankings, which is why higher taxonomic levels such as families are often used for fossil based studies. [1][2]

The total number of non-bacterial species in the world has been estimated at 8.7 million, [3] with previous estimates ranging from two million to 100 million. [4]

In biology , a genus (plural: genera) is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms , which is an example of definition by genus and differentia . Genera and higher taxonomic levels such as families are used in biodiversity studies, particularly in fossil studies since species cannot always be confidently identified and genera and families typically have longer stratigraphic ranges than species. [1]

The term comes from Latin genus "descent, family, type, gender", [2] cognate with Greek : γ?νο ς – genos, "race, stock, kin". [3]

The hierarchy of biological classification 's eight major taxonomic ranks , which is an example of definition by genus and differentia . A family contains one or more genera. Intermediate minor rankings are not shown.

The composition of a genus is determined by a taxonomist . The standards for genus classification are not strictly codified so different authorities often produce different classifications for genera. In the hierarchy of the binomial classification system, genus comes above species and below family .

Life

Domain

Kingdom

Phylum

Class

Order

Family

Genus

Species

148

Who designed cancer?

by snare&racket in

jw
friends

one thing i regret, is not listening to the questions in my head whilst a jw.

one i didn't ask until years after leaving was....who designed disease?

of course the first thing to realise is the complexity of disease, the histology, pathology and aetiology.

Vidqun

S&R, seems like there is always two sides to a coin. With the circumcision thing I find myself in good company, e.g., Reuters who published the article, the WHO, the UNAids group, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, etc. Or did you miss that? Really, where have you been? See fourth post on this page. And the name calling? I wonder where that started?

And I repeat, if you know of bacteria, that is Super bugs, jumping the species barrier, please let me know. I will look into it. Perhaps then I will change my tune. But spewing abuse and insults are not going to do the trick. And make no mistake, I'll carry on with my reading. I love reading.

20

Dear WTS, if higher education is a waste of time, don't eat the fruit it bares

by arko_n9ne in

it's 9pm over here, so good evening to those without the sun, and good morning to those who just got it from us.. i've been pretty aggitated with the needless demonizing of higher education from the wts.

they make subtle gestures but their lawyers are too clever to let them say it directly these days.. but i was rereading the february 2011 awake magazine.

i use my watchtowers and awakes for giggles on the can these days.

Vidqun

Agreed. At an assembly one listens to a talk where higher education is demonized. They interview a youngster that gave up his secular studies to go pioneering. Everybody clap in appreciation.

Pity the story is not continued: When the person marries, have children, stop pioneering, and have to work secularly without qualifications. The alternative: The pioneer goes to Bethel, marries a lovely sister, which becomes pregnant, and they have to leave Bethel, to fight an uphill battle to survive in the world.

Then at same assembly, at announcements they urge brothers and sisters to apply for Bethel, especially registered doctors, nurses, dentists, physiotherapists. It boggles the mind.