← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · madrussian
Thread ID: 20114 | Posts: 14 | Started: 2005-09-10
2005-09-10 03:47 | User Profile
To break the dull sequence of "intelligent" design theory, here is real scientific news. Of course, one has to ignore the tribute to political correctness at the end of the article. Especially after niggers behaving like niggers in New Orleans, this appears even more ridiculous. There's nothing more obvious to a more or less analytical person that niggers are dumb and unable to function in modern society. Sooner or later it will be impossible to deny the simple truth that niggers are dead-end monkey branch.
Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Human brains are still evolving, increasing in both size and complexity, University of Chicago geneticists said in two papers published in the journal Science.
Scientists studying two genes that regulate brain size, Microcephalin and ASPM, found groups of variants, known as haplogroups, that emerged about 37,000 years ago and 5,800 years ago, according to the papers published yesterday in Science. Anatomically modern humans evolved about 200,000 years ago.
Our studies indicate that the trend that is the defining characteristic of human evolution -- the growth of brain size and complexity -- is likely still going on,'' Bruce Lahn, lead researcher for both papers, said in an accompanying statement.If our species survives for another million years or so, I would imagine that the brain by then would show significant structural differences from the human brain of today.''
For both genes, the ``new'' class of variants was called haplogroup D. Versions of the Microcephalin variant are found in about 70 percent of humans, and ASPM's haplogroup D is present in about 30 percent of today's people, according to the papers. ASPM stands for Abnormal, Spindle-like Microcephaly Associated. Mutations of either gene can cause reduced brain size.
For each gene, one class of variants has arisen recently and has been spreading rapidly because it is favored by selection,'' the University of Chicago Medical Center said in a statement accompanying the papers.These time windows are extraordinarily short in evolutionary terms, indicating that the new variants were subject to very intense selection pressure that drove up their frequencies in a very brief period of time û- both well after the emergence of modern humans.''
Regional Variation
**
The emergence of haplogroup D for microcephalin coincides with the arrival of modern humans to Europe from Africa, about 40,000 years ago, and a dramatic shift in the archeological record'' relating to human use of art and symbols, according to one of the papers. The ASPM grouping came about roughly at the same time as thedevelopment of cities and written language 5,000 to 6,000 years ago around the Middle East,'' the other paper said. The significance of the correlation ``is not yet clear,'' scientists said.
Scientists studied the prevalence of variants of the two genes in 1,184 people around the world. They found that for Microcephalin, Haplogroup D is more common in Europe, Asia and Latin America than in sub-Saharan Africa. No one was tested in Australia or the U.S. In South America, all of those tested had the variant. For ASPM, Middle Easterners and Europeans had a higher prevalence of haplogroup D than in other areas.**
Selfishness Genes
Those geographical differences aren't an indication that one ethnic group is more evolved'' than another, according to Lahn, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the University of Chicago. Differences between ethnic groups areminor'' compared with differences between individuals within those groups, he said.
If we look at multiple genes, the ethnic variations such as the ones we found are likely to be counterbalanced by other differences,'' Lahn said.Just because these genes are still evolving, doesn't necessarily mean they make you any smarter. We've evolved genes for selfishness, violence, cruelty û- all of which are in place because they may make survival easier.''
2005-09-10 03:52 | User Profile
"People have this sense that as 21st-Century humans, we've gotten as high as we're going to go," said Greg Wray, director of Duke University's Center for Evolutionary Genomics. "But we're not played out as a species. We're still evolving, and these studies are a pretty good example of that."
Just as major environmental changes in the past favored the selection of genetic traits that increased survival skills, the pressures on gene selection today come from an increasingly complex and technologically oriented society, said Lahn, a professor of human genetics and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
It's a shame that instead of favoring smarter people, the modern liberal society encourages monkeys to breed, while smarter people are too busy with their career. There's way too many people on Earth, the explosion in population being sparked by the advances in agriculture, medicine and technology in the West. All this vegetable sludge is trying to make its way to the West, thus choking the first-world society with their mediocrity and inferior culture and work ethic.
2005-09-10 03:54 | User Profile
[QUOTE=madrussian]It's a shame that instead of favoring smarter people, the modern liberal society encourages monkeys to breed, while smarter people are too busy with their career. There's way too many people on Earth, the explosion in population being sparked by the advances in agriculture, medicine and technology in the West. All this vegetable sludge is trying to make its way to the West, thus choking the first-world society with their mediocrity and inferior culture and work ethic.[/QUOTE]Sounds like Shockley.
2005-09-10 08:21 | User Profile
[COLOR=DarkRed][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "To break the dull sequence of "intelligent" design theory, here is real scientific news."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
It is dull only to crass materialists like you, and anyways -
Steve Sailer comments: [FONT=Arial][COLOR=Navy][I] "BAD NEWS FOR MOST EVANGELICALS: Humans are still evolving - and at quite a brisk pace, according to new research. Bad news for liberals: at the rate research is going, you will soon have to choose between believing in evolution and denying any subtle, genetic differences between broad racial groups.[/I][/COLOR] [COLOR=Indigo] [B]That's actually a little unfair to the many Creationists who believe in "microevolution" within species (which is what these two papers are about) but not "macroevolution" into new species[/B].[/COLOR][/FONT]
[url]http://isteve.blogspot.com/2005/09/bruce-t-lahns-new-brain-genes.html[/url]
Evo-believers are so easily impressed. I will wait and see how creationists and ID folks will respond and interpret these[B] speculations[/B].
[COLOR=Red][B]"The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him."
Petr
2005-09-10 08:33 | User Profile
Interesting stuff, MR. This is quite possibly a crucial link between what's known about racial differences through psychology (and history) and the biological realm.
[quote=Petr]It is dull only to crass materialists like you... Gee, I didn't know it was "crass" to believe only in things for which there is actual evidence of existence. :rolleyes:
2005-09-10 08:57 | User Profile
[COLOR=Blue][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "Gee, I didn't know it was "crass" to believe only in things for which there is actual evidence of existence."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
CreationSafari.com (that you badmouthed without a single detailed point of criticism) is full of scientific news just as "real" as this piece is, like this:
[SIZE=4]"Bird Brains: No Evolutionary Pattern in Size" [/SIZE]
[url]http://creationsafaris.com/crev200509.htm#20050907aa[/url]
To say that this story below is somehow more "[B]real[/B]" is childish evolutionist self-congratulation at its finest.
And as far as crassness goes, madrussian simply is a crass character. I think he would even himself agree.
Petr
2005-09-10 09:31 | User Profile
CreationSafaris is a joke because
(1) It takes as its starting point the premise that a book, the Bible, is literally true, even when there is no evidence that it is and tons of evidence that it isn't;
(2) It assumes that any controversy within the scientific community over the details of certain theories, including evolution, is a sign that those theories are themselves somehow fundamentally uncertain. This is just wishful thinking.
All of this religion-science controversy is just history repeating itself:
"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin."
ââ¬â Cardinal Bellarmino, 1615, during the trial of Galileo
But reason will always triumph over faith, superstition, wishful thinking, and other nonsense. Religion is a weapon in the war against reality, but reality always wins in the end.
2005-09-10 09:35 | User Profile
Why does madrussian try to turn this into something against Intelligent Design? There's no contradiction between ID and the possibilities mentioned in this study.
2005-09-10 09:39 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angler]But reason will always triumph over faith, superstition, wishful thinking, and other nonsense. Religion is a weapon in the war against reality, but reality always wins in the end.[/QUOTE] You are inventing dichotomies that don't hold up. Reason and faith aren't mutually exclusive. We see this demonstrated by your obvious faith in reason. Reason can be based upon false premises, and in fact this happens all the time. Reason and fanaticism often go together, frex, just look at Objectivists. Or at numerous scientists for that matter. I recently read a Wikipedia article which notes that most geneticists deny that racial differences are important.
2005-09-10 09:50 | User Profile
Hamilton, you can count on Angler to dutifully roll out the most worn-out, banal "enlightenment" clichés there is.
CreationSafari.com is citing very genuine and "real" science news that so often contradict the conventional wisdom ("the problems with our thesis are minimal, there's nothing to see here, tis' only a flesh wound!") that evolutionists feed to their gullible masses - who cannot spend their time independently studying this issue and will just have to rely on evos word on it.
That is what matters, Angler's babbling about Bible and Galileo is utterly irrelevant.
(How would skeptics react if Christians would announce that only believers have a right to interpret the Bible, and that unbelievers are categorically unqualified to comment on these matters? That all notions of Bible containing contradictions and fallacies are merely exaggerated sensationalism, "wishful thinking," from biased anti-Bible amateurs?)
Petr
2005-09-10 10:24 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Hamilton]You are inventing dichotomies that don't hold up. Reason and faith aren't mutually exclusive. We see this demonstrated by your obvious faith in reason. I'm talking about "faith" in the sense of believing in something without evidence. Clearly there's no shortage of evidence that reason works.
Reason can be based upon false premises, and in fact this happens all the time. Absolutely true, but I was tacitly including empirical observation in my definition of "reason," since that's an important method of obtaining correct premises.
That's why empirical evidence is so crucial in science. Empirical observation -- either correct predictions or retrodictions -- is the final authority on which theories are correct and which aren't. The Bible is not.
Reason and fanaticism often go together... I don't agree -- I think just the opposite is true. Blind faith and fanaticism are practically joined at the hip.
frex, just look at Objectivists. Or at numerous scientists for that matter. I don't pay much attention to Objectivists (I've only read one book by Ayn Rand -- Anthem), but much of their philosophy does make sense and seems pretty sober to me.
Why do you say that "numerous scientists" are fanatical? Do you have any particular ones in mind? I guess I can see how someone might think of Dawkins as a fanatical atheist, but only because he's so outspoken.
Finally, just because someone is "fanatical," by whatever standard, doesn't mean he's wrong.
And I recently read a Wikipedia article which notes that most geneticists deny that racial differences are important.[/QUOTE]Do you have a link? I'd say the author of that article was either lying or misinformed. It is a fact that there are certain genetic traits that vary among races, and no reputable scientist disputes that.
2005-09-10 10:34 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr]Hamilton, you can count on Angler to dutifully roll out the most worn-out, banal "enlightenment" clichés there is.
CreationSafari.com is citing very genuine and "real" science news that so often contradict the conventional wisdom ("the problems with our thesis are minimal, there's nothing to see here, tis' only a flesh wound!") that evolutionists feed to their gullible masses - who cannot spend their time independently studying this issue and will just have to rely on evos word on it.
That is what matters, Angler's babbling about Bible and Galileo is utterly irrelevant. No, Petr, the Bible isn't "irrelevant." This entire controversy is, for you, ALL about the Bible. And you know it.
You are a scientifically-illiterate university student who sees fit to bestow a holy seal of approval on pseudo-scientists simply because they tell you what you want to hear. That's the long and short of it.
How would skeptics react if Christians would announce that only believers have a right to interpret the Bible, and that unbelievers are categorically unqualified to comment on these matters? It would make no sense to demand that only believers interpret the Bible, but it would make perfect sense to demand that only literate people, or people who have actually read the Bible, comment on it. As it turns out, many nonbelievers know a lot more about the Bible than most Christians.
That all notions of Bible containing contradictions and fallacies are merely exaggerated sensationalism, "wishful thinking," from biased anti-Bible amateurs? Those contradictions and fallacies exist and are easily seen by anyone who isn't willfully blind to them (as I admittedly once was). The sort of tortuous and tortured apologetics Bible-thumpers use to explain away Biblical contradictions could be used to make any book seem infallible.
If you present me with two apparently contradictory verses from the Koran right now, I guarantee that I will find a way to explain away the contradiction. You won't accept it, of course, but the explanation isn't for the doubter's benefit anyway -- it's for the benefit of the person doing the explaining, since he wants to believe and is afraid not to.
2005-09-10 13:04 | User Profile
[COLOR=DarkRed][FONT=Arial][B][I] - "Those contradictions and fallacies exist and are easily seen by anyone who isn't willfully blind to them (as I admittedly once was)."[/I][/B][/FONT][/COLOR]
The contradictions and fallacies of orthodox materialist-evolutionist dogmas are easily seen by anyone who isn't willfully blind to them. Thanks for confirming my comparison. :)
Petr
2005-09-10 18:11 | User Profile
Angler:
A large number of "mainstream" scientists do reject that race has any important validity for humans. Many believe that, frex, IQ differences between races are due solely to environmental reasons. If you weren't aware of that, it further shows your blind faith in the infallibility of "reason" and "science".
[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race"]Race:[/url]
"Many evolutionary and social scientists, drawing on such biological research, think common race definitions, or any race definitions pertaining to humans, lack [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy"]taxonomic[/url] rigour and [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Validity_of_human_races"]validity[/url]. They argue that race definitions are imprecise, arbitrary, derived from custom, and that the races observed vary according to the culture examined. They further maintain that race is best understood as a [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_construction"]social construct[/url]." [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_nationalism"] White nationalism: [/url]
"The term "[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race"]race[/url]", though held by most geneticists to be of little [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific"]scientific[/url] value, still holds social value for people (in part or in whole) who base their personal identity genetic characteristics that affect outward appearance."