hammegk

scigirl
I noticed you critiqued my eye example, but not the mouse-human data.

Scigirl et al, what IS the response to DavidH's comment, "With 139 of 140 complete and 1 to occur, why is a correct #140 more likely than an incorrect change in one of the 'good' mutations #1-139 ?? Those odds of 140 'just-so' changes do seem high; no I can't calculate a number.

Theyeti
It was later discovered that the phenomenon ocurrs when some bacteria that are
under stress enter into a hyper-mutation phase in which the correct beneficial muation is more likely to come about. There's no "looking ahead" involved, though it did cause quite a stir when it was first discovered. You may want to read recent
papers by Patricia Foster.
Ms. Foster's position seems to be 'not proved as look-ahead' but also converse not proved either.
"Hyper-mutation" as a response to environment is an odd concept of random mutation is it not?

Oolon
Reason enough to discount him (tricky god) from investigations, I'd have thought.
Yup, but relying on Tricky to help refute the trap of nihilism works for some.

lpetrich

Some pagan religions had indeed done so, such as the ancient Egyptian religion about Osiris. And if some god or hero did not die and rise again, he/she would often visit the realm of the dead.

YES. Because the same can be said of the many religions and sects that DavidH rejects.

What a piddling miracle. Consider the miracles in the Bible. Or those in various other mythologies. Or miracles allegedly worked by medieval saints.

Carl Sagan once said that he did not want to believe, he wanted to know.

An omnipotent being can easily make new ones. And could make them until diamond became as cheap as glass. Or else could make them miraculously indestructible.

And maybe if someone tries to assassinate you, O DavidH, you will then accept that that might be God's time for you also.

Because they are not big and unmistakable, and because they could easily be the result of other causes.

theyeti

I haven't read the papers in awhile, but the "directed" mutation bit was pretty well put down. There's no evidence for it, and standard Darwinian processes seem to be at work. Here's a very recent paper that pretty much sums it up:

Hendrickson et al, Amplification-mutagenesis: Evidence that "directed" adaptive mutation and general hypermutability result from growth with selected gene amplification. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2002 Feb 19;99(4):2164-2169.

Why? It's generally caused by the lack of DNA repair/proofreading activity, which isn't too odd in a stressed organism. However, hypermutation does not seem to be implicated in the above study.

theyeti

notto

You seem to be lucky to have heard this story first hand concidering most people only get it through e-mail spam and from religious sites.

<a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hot+water+bottle+missionary&btnG=Go ogle+Search" target="_blank">Helen Roseveare and the Hot Water Bottle story</a>

Quetzal

Oh, National Geographic! Why didn't you say so? I guess you must be right. All I have to work with are primary sources and the Russian, Ukrainian, and American scientists at the Slavutych Radioecology Laboratory, not to mention the survivors of the disaster as well as current and past employees of ChNPP. Since approx. 40% of my current project deals with Slavutych (remember? the community that was created for the survivors in 4 mos. following the disaster?), and either myself or one of my staffers is there on a weekly basis, obviously your National Geographic source is much more accurate. I stand corrected.

notto: It's not nice to ruin a perfectly good anecdote with facts.

davidH

No way! lol, I hadn't a clue that this would be on the internet.

If you really want to verify that I did hear this first hand then mail her and ask if she has ever taken any meetings in a church in Lisburn in N.Ireland.


About the national geographic. lol, come on man, if you work there then I'll accept what you say. I just thought that the national geographic wouldn't have published such an artical if it weren't true.

Chilli

davidH, you said:

Quote:
I believe that the miracles that are recorded in the Bible did happen and there is no natural explanation for them.
The reason I believe they happened is that the Christian faith would never have been able to grow unless they were real. Jesus too had to have existed.
End quote.


I replied:
Remember, the worth of an idea is not dependent on the number of people who hold it to be true, only on the worth of the idea.


To which you replied:
Quote:
This is true and never did I say that Christianity is true because of the number of people that follow it.

But do you think the Christian faith could have grown if everything in the Bible (NT) had not been true? Would you believe in something as outrageous as the ressurection from the dead? Cause that is the message that we preach.
End quote.

To others and myself, it sure seems that you are arguing that too many people follow Christianity for it not to be true. You are saying that you believe in the miracles described in the bible because many other people past and present follow Christianity. Do you also believe in all of the miracles/etc described in other holy books of other religions? If not, why not? Can you honestly say that you apply the same critical view to your religion that you must apply to others?

Quetzal

Look davidH, Nat.Geo. is a pretty good magazine. But they're also the folks that brought you Archeoraptor. They occasionally over-dramatize their reports. They are NOT a peer-reviewed scientific publication - although they set a high standard.

As far as working at the magazine in order to criticize it, my point was I have access (nearly unlimited on this particular issue) to primary source material, as well as published works, health statistics in the community in which my project works, and direct access to the effected population. Guess what, contrary to your rediculous claim, there were limited numbers of direct, deterministic effects. There was an increase in still-births and spontaneous abortions among a very small segment of the plant workers. The real problem with Chernobyl, which if you'd read my post you'd know, was a significant increase in thyroid cancer among young children - directly attributable to environmental uptake of radionuclides, primarily I-131 and Cs-137. It is a stochastic increase, not deterministic.

IOW, there is no reason to expect "beneficial" mutations in this circumstance. The results indicate that most mutations were neutral or deleterious. Oddly enough, just what would be expected by genetics. Care to discuss barn swallows?

lpetrich

Not to mention Christian sects that DavidH undoubtedly believes to be heretical, like Roman Catholicism and Mormonism. There are numerous biographies of medieval saints, many of whom had worked numerous miracles. Yet DavidH completely evades this question.

davidH

Nah, I haven't evaded that question. I've been busy with revision again but I'm back.

No, I don't believe Christianity is true because of the number of people that follow it - how could I since there are millions that also follow Isalm? I'm not implying that at all.

What I am implying is that you couldn't get people in your own hometowns to believe what you say - if you say that a man lived in that time and did many miracles infront of huge crowds, and was then killed by people in your town and rose again.

If Jesus did not do miracles then would the people believe what you were saying anymore than those in your own hometown if you did what I described above?

That was the point I am trying to make - He didn't just do miracles in private but did them infront of huge crowds when they came to him with their sick - that's a lot of witnesses.
If it were made up - it could have easily been shown as a fake. You forget too that the historian of that time(Josephus) also mentioned Jesus - why would he have mentioned him if he was so insignificant? The fact that he did meant that he saw something that needed to be recorded in history.
That's the point I'm trying to get across.