Prune said:
Well, probably correct except about that which you do not know, which by definition is unforeseen and unforeseeable: nobody knows what they do not know. See the problem with "probably"?
Tom,
About the blue-print of the organism: There seems to be some evidence (I can't remember who researched it, I'll look it up later) that there is not really a blueprint in the cells. Rather, there is a range of options, a set of capabilities.
As I understand it: suppose that a cell starts to develop as a bone cell. At a certain point, there are enough bone cells, and other cells start to develop as muscle cells. Now, it would be wrong to say that some cells are *destined* to become bone cells and others to become muscle cells. They could become either one, and it depends on circumstances what they become. They have the capability to become specialist cells, that's in the blueprint, not *which one* they will become.
It is similar to what I wrote about earlier about Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group selection. There really is no detailed blue print of the brain as far as connectivity is concerned. The number of possible connection combinations exceeds the number of particles in the known universe, so trying to code for such a wiring is rather futile. The brain has a general capability to do things, and those connectivity groups that are created to events and that are *succesfull* are kept around. It is illustrative that the general areas in the brain (say speech, reasoning, spatial perception) are located at the same place across individuals, pointing at a general capability blueprint. However, the actual wiring in these areas is often wildly different across individuals of similar capability!
Another similarity is found in the immune system. It is simply impossible to encode against all possible virusses, firstly because there are many more variants possible than coding sequences, and secondly there will be new variants that cannot be predicted. Instead the immune system provides a general capability, which IS in the blueprint, to detect and classify virusses and manufacture appropriate counter-bodies.
Sorry to ramble on, but all this points to me to a kind of *universal* law in nature. All these issue are basically evolutionary in nature: what work stays, what doesn't gets supressed. According to Ochams razor, if i would try to explain an unknown phenomenon, I would start with an evolutionary direction, rather than postulating new-fangled internal projection fields or what have you.
Jan Didden
About the blue-print of the organism: There seems to be some evidence (I can't remember who researched it, I'll look it up later) that there is not really a blueprint in the cells. Rather, there is a range of options, a set of capabilities.
As I understand it: suppose that a cell starts to develop as a bone cell. At a certain point, there are enough bone cells, and other cells start to develop as muscle cells. Now, it would be wrong to say that some cells are *destined* to become bone cells and others to become muscle cells. They could become either one, and it depends on circumstances what they become. They have the capability to become specialist cells, that's in the blueprint, not *which one* they will become.
It is similar to what I wrote about earlier about Edelman's Theory of Neuronal Group selection. There really is no detailed blue print of the brain as far as connectivity is concerned. The number of possible connection combinations exceeds the number of particles in the known universe, so trying to code for such a wiring is rather futile. The brain has a general capability to do things, and those connectivity groups that are created to events and that are *succesfull* are kept around. It is illustrative that the general areas in the brain (say speech, reasoning, spatial perception) are located at the same place across individuals, pointing at a general capability blueprint. However, the actual wiring in these areas is often wildly different across individuals of similar capability!
Another similarity is found in the immune system. It is simply impossible to encode against all possible virusses, firstly because there are many more variants possible than coding sequences, and secondly there will be new variants that cannot be predicted. Instead the immune system provides a general capability, which IS in the blueprint, to detect and classify virusses and manufacture appropriate counter-bodies.
Sorry to ramble on, but all this points to me to a kind of *universal* law in nature. All these issue are basically evolutionary in nature: what work stays, what doesn't gets supressed. According to Ochams razor, if i would try to explain an unknown phenomenon, I would start with an evolutionary direction, rather than postulating new-fangled internal projection fields or what have you.
Jan Didden
You are grasping for straws now. By that logic, if I were to say that my next breath will probably not kill me instantly, you would have to disagree -- clearly a ludicrous proposition.
Jan, biophysical theories are consistent with and extend our understanding of evolutionary theory, of which I am quite aware, having studied it to not a small degree. The "blueprint" of which I spoke I intended to describe, much as you did, a dynamic blueprint subject to change on an ongoing basis. I agree with the proposition that no given cell is predestined to be this or that kind of cell, but adapts according to signals from its environment within relatively loose predetermined bounds (I think you called it a set of capabilities). I was merely suggesting that biophysics, which is not quack science, by the way (it is, after all, favoured by Germans---kidding!), might shed some light on the signalling mechanism guiding the adaptation process.
serengetiplains said:
I see. Well that's someting I am completely ignorant on. Haven't got to that stage yet
...[Time to get a pizza or something, lest the internal biophysics come to a grinding halt..]
Jan Didden
Learned what? I don't follow at all what you are trying to say. Maybe you should count to ten before you hit the reply button.
Prune, reading your response to the 4 famous experiments, it seems to me you are basically agreeing with me (that the experiments proved the theories) on all major points, except for a little philosophical wiggling 🙂
I thought that word looked familiar. Mitogenetics is a perfect example of pathological science. A good discussion by Nobel Laureate Irving Langmuir.
The Russians are well known for making extraordinary claims. But like Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Eventually, in real science mistakes are caught by peer review, even if it takes a while as in the case of cold fusion.
The Russians are well known for making extraordinary claims. But like Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Eventually, in real science mistakes are caught by peer review, even if it takes a while as in the case of cold fusion.
TNT said:
Hilarious. Quoth Randi, "And, he obviously has never seen my act, or he'd know that I am truly "Amazing."" The guy's unsufferable.
geoffkait said:
Not at all. Newtonian physics was also verified by experiments at the time, yet later shown incorrect. The same applies to, say, relativity. It is also incrorrect, but a far better approximation. The word 'proven' means established beyond doubt. There is no such thing in science.
The most contradictory thing about me is that, the skeptic that I am, I'm still hanging around an audiophile forum. serengetiplains, on the other hand, fits it like a glove, especially considering the occupation he lists in his profile (which I take at face value).
Hey, anyone here read John D. Barrow's Impossibility: The Limits of Science and the Science of Limits?
Don't put words in my mouth. I said nothing about these references. Let's look at my post:
And no, I'm not in philosophy. Philosophy that is not grounded in science is worse than useless -- it is theosophy.
Langumuir said mitogenetics is pathological science, not me. But I agree with him. Just because someone cites a bunch of papers, some of which are not crackpot, it does not mean his argument is proven, unless it follows directly from what is cited -- which I don't see here.
And no, I'm not in philosophy. Philosophy that is not grounded in science is worse than useless -- it is theosophy.
sheldrake
Off original topic (amazing randi) a bit, but any crossword puzzle fans take note of this "evidence" of Sheldrake's "morphic fields." (OK, so it's anecdotal 🙂. This is a test of the concept that the more people that have learned something the easier it will be for the next person to learn it.
Impress your frends with your crossword puzzle solving ability. This "trick" should also work for Today's crossword puzzle IF you do it late in the day, the later the better. The crossword puzzle selected should be in wide circulation (syndicated) to maximize the number of persons who have previously attempted the puzzle. Washington Post's daily xword puzzle works well, for example. Interesting how the words just pop into your head.
(Quotes by R. Sheldrake)
"Space does not allow summarizing all the work that is happening at present. I will just mention one experiment done recently. It is not, in fact, the best experiment, but it is the easiest to explain. This was done with crossword puzzles in the psychology department at Nottingham University. The young woman who did it, Monica England, reasoned as follows: If morphic resonance is happening, it should be easier to do today's newspaper crossword puzzle tomorrow than it would have been yesterday.
So we managed to persuade a London newspaper, The Evening Standard, to supply its crossword puzzle in advance for the purpose of this experiment. Students were tested in Nottingham the day before and the day after the crossword was published in London. They were also tested with a control crossword which was not published during that period. This of course involved testing different groups of students before and after. The control crossword gave a measure of each individual's ability to do crossword puzzles of that kind.
It turned out that students' performances on the test crossword did indeed improve by about 25 percent after it had been published, compared with the control crossword. This result is statistically significant and is, of course, very interesting."
Off original topic (amazing randi) a bit, but any crossword puzzle fans take note of this "evidence" of Sheldrake's "morphic fields." (OK, so it's anecdotal 🙂. This is a test of the concept that the more people that have learned something the easier it will be for the next person to learn it.
Impress your frends with your crossword puzzle solving ability. This "trick" should also work for Today's crossword puzzle IF you do it late in the day, the later the better. The crossword puzzle selected should be in wide circulation (syndicated) to maximize the number of persons who have previously attempted the puzzle. Washington Post's daily xword puzzle works well, for example. Interesting how the words just pop into your head.
(Quotes by R. Sheldrake)
"Space does not allow summarizing all the work that is happening at present. I will just mention one experiment done recently. It is not, in fact, the best experiment, but it is the easiest to explain. This was done with crossword puzzles in the psychology department at Nottingham University. The young woman who did it, Monica England, reasoned as follows: If morphic resonance is happening, it should be easier to do today's newspaper crossword puzzle tomorrow than it would have been yesterday.
So we managed to persuade a London newspaper, The Evening Standard, to supply its crossword puzzle in advance for the purpose of this experiment. Students were tested in Nottingham the day before and the day after the crossword was published in London. They were also tested with a control crossword which was not published during that period. This of course involved testing different groups of students before and after. The control crossword gave a measure of each individual's ability to do crossword puzzles of that kind.
It turned out that students' performances on the test crossword did indeed improve by about 25 percent after it had been published, compared with the control crossword. This result is statistically significant and is, of course, very interesting."
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