Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : THE SLIGHTLY MODERATED BOXING RING -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (790)	3/2/2002 7:06:53 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

When people didn't understand volcanoes and earthquakes, they imagined the forges of the Gods to explain them. When people didn't understand lightning and thunder, they invented the bolts of Zeus and the hammer of Thor. When they didn't understand the disease process and the nature of infectious organisms, they invented all manner of evil spirits to explain sickness. This could go on very nearly ad infinitum, but the pattern is clear. As our knowledge of the physical world increases, previously inexplicable physical phenomena generally turn out to have natural explanations, and the supernatural ones fall by the wayside. We have obviously not learned all there is to know about the physical world. I suspect that we've barely scratched the surface. I suspect that what we have learned today will in a hundred years seem every bit as primitive as the science of a hundred years ago seems today. Very likely it will seem much more primitive: the rate of increase in knowledge has lately been closer to the exponential than to the linear. Over and over again, physical phenomena that we could not explain have turned out to have material explanations. Over and over again, myths have fallen by the wayside as our knowledge base expands. Does it not make sense to assume that this consistent pattern will continue, and that as our knowledge base continues to expand, many things that we do not now know will become clear? I see no reason to assume that though so many previously inexplicable things are now understood, and so many supernatural explanations have been replaced by natural ones, these inexplicable things, the ones we don't understand now, can only be explained by the presence of a deity. Unless, of course, you really, really want to believe.

To: Neocon who wrote (790)	3/3/2002 2:35:44 AM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21057

Just to get a functioning mammal, you have to have a bunch of mutations that are simultaneous and coordinated. You need an articulated skeletal structure, a musculature, a nervous system capable of moving those muscles, a circulatory system to nourish tissue, a pulmonary system to oxygenate the blood, etc. These changes have to occur at the right pace, and be calibrated for proper interaction. Randomness is too blunt an instrument........ Ah, now I see what you're driving at. I think. You are assuming that you throw all the chemicals up in the air and BINGO! by magic they just happen to fall into place to make a mammal- -one time out of the quadrillions of times you try the experiment. May I point out this is not what theory says? To get that mammal you are talking about you start with a reptile- -which already has "an articulated skeletal structure, a musculature, a nervous system capable of moving those muscles, a circulatory system to nourish tissue, a pulmonary system to oxygenate the blood, etc." You don't need to create all that from scratch. It's there; you need to modify it. And to get that reptile, you started with an amphibian, and to get that amphibian, ..... Come on, Neo, straw man arguments don't cut it.