epigenetics

[YourCaptor]

and what\s with the blue cats?

From the movie avatar.

A 10 foot alien species that consists of human anatomy + furry fetish stuff.

 

[Evil_Geoff]

And let the rest of us have a turn.

I want androgyny too! Or maybe polygenders. Or possibly the term would be ambigenders...

Hmmmm... if you could alter physical sexual characteristics at will...I think that would make you...

Ambigenderous!

 

[Stella_Omega]

Hmmmm... if you could alter physical sexual characteristics at will...I think that would make you...

Ambigenderous!

Make me baby!!

 

[bhndblueyes88]

Let me find the original pic...and I might be able to tell you....

Thank you very much! I think I've seen it in one of the liquor stores outside town. Probably won't try it for a while, though. I prefer ales and stouts to lagers.

 

[teknight]

Make me baby!!

How would you look being ambigenderous?

Thank you very much! I think I've seen it in one of the liquor stores outside town. Probably won't try it for a while, though. I prefer ales and stouts to lagers.

Being Russian, I'm sure vodka's involved somewhere in the manufacturing process.

 

[Stella_Omega]

How would you look being ambigenderous?

like a boy, or like a girl. The hips would be wider in female phase, shoulders wider in male phase, and all the rest of it. I think the process would be painful each time-- like werewolves. The bones have to shift with the change... I wrote this story once, in a long-lost spiralbound notebook...

Being Russian, I'm sure vodka's involved somewhere in the manufacturing process.

lots of Vodka, in the workers.

 

[teknight]

like a boy, or like a girl. The hips would be wider in female phase, shoulders wider in male phase, and all the rest of it. I think the process would be painful each time-- like werewolves. The bones have to shift with the change... I wrote this story once, in a long-lost spiralbound notebook...


lots of Vodka, in the workers.

I was assuming simultaneity, a la futanari.

You know, I never do get how people are supposed to change from human to wolf/werewolf...I mean, seriously, that kinda process would take up a ton of energy, if nothing else. The exothermic reaction alone would cook the brains before they got to wag their tails....

 

[Stella_Omega]

I was assuming simultaneity, a la futanari.

You know, I never do get how people are supposed to change from human to wolf/werewolf...I mean, seriously, that kinda process would take up a ton of energy, if nothing else. The exothermic reaction alone would cook the brains before they got to wag their tails....

Magic sneers at exothermic reaction.

Dunno why I never wanted to go the futanari route. All or nothing. Of course it became very obvious to me that, once I'd switched back and forth a few times, I would go to male mode and then disable the switch...

 

[bhndblueyes88]

Magic sneers at exothermic reaction.

Well that's precisely it!! MAGIC!!!

A lot of the thermic/related arguments against magic refuse to treat magic as it's OWN ENERGY

You're expending magic, and making magic, just like heat and other forms of energy

 

[Stella_Omega]

Well that's precisely it!! MAGIC!!!

A lot of the thermic/related arguments against magic refuse to treat magic as it's OWN ENERGY

You're expending magic, and making magic, just like heat and other forms of energy

Magic energy comes in from another dimension.

And it goes out the same. No worries about entropy or thermics in thaumaturgy

 

[bhndblueyes88]

Magic energy comes in from another dimension.

And it goes out the same. No worries about entropy or thermics in thaumaturgy

preciseididdly

 

[YourCaptor]

How it works for those interested.

Those red and green things are what you would need to control. Assuming you know what gene is located where.

 

[Stella_Omega]

How it works for those interested.

Those red and green things are what you would need to control. Assuming you know what gene is located where.

Thanks for the link--

I want to drop everything and study molecular biology now-- So impressed that you're doing it !

(too funny, all the ID comments!)

 

[YourCaptor]

Thanks for the link--

I want to drop everything and study molecular biology now-- So impressed that you're doing it !

(too funny, all the ID comments!)

I do biological psychology.

Which in short is studying behavior from a biological perspective.

However it gets rather complicated due to the layered nature of biology.

For example your actions functions through networks of neurons, so you have to enter that world. However the neural network world functions due to world inside each cell. Which produces plasticity back in neural network layer, which produces new ideas and behaviors back in the action world, and they you have to figure out how that works on each layer.

You can go into details and define a large amount of layers, all of which need to be consider else you get a huge hole in your theories and it wont add up. And then of course their are all those extra layers which are not considered because they are thought not to play any role that causes change, but you can never be really sure.

This is why I don't understand evolution. If the theory of evolution is correct then it must constantly produce useless components that have no functions, until millions of years later when another layer emerges in which all those little components can come together and produce something that has a function, which really has no relation at all to the components other then that they are building blocks within it. Even if you decide sure, it's all a dice game, even then the numbers don't add up. The number of generations in which it happens are less then random chance would require.

 

[teknight]

I do biological psychology.
This is why I don't understand evolution. If the theory of evolution is correct then it must constantly produce useless components that have no functions, until millions of years later when another layer emerges in which all those little components can come together and produce something that has a function, which really has no relation at all to the components other then that they are building blocks within it. Even if you decide sure, it's all a dice game, even then the numbers don't add up. The number of generations in which it happens are less then random chance would require.

Who says it takes millions of years for evolution to occur? Dismiss that idea, for one.
And it's not about usefulness. Some are outright deleterious, and the organism dies from the get go. Some get it more mates...so the useless trait is sexy....
Some are sometimes useful, sometimes not- like sickle cell anemia, the components of which protect against malaria.

No generation lasts for a million years, bud.

 

[YourCaptor]

Who says it takes millions of years for evolution to occur? Dismiss that idea, for one.
And it's not about usefulness. Some are outright deleterious, and the organism dies from the get go. Some get it more mates...so the useless trait is sexy....
Some are sometimes useful, sometimes not- like sickle cell anemia, the components of which protect against malaria.

No generation lasts for a million years, bud.

I'm talking about getting something that does anything at all. If you randomly generated a polypeptide and place it in a cell, chances are it does jack shit and gets destroyed right away. It should take millions of years for anything to appear that can interact with something preexisting, unless you work in radiology.

Not only that in life that random polypeptide needs to first be selected for coding, which means it needs all the proper start, stop, introns, exons, and so on. Not to mention it will probably only work if it is combined with other proteins, which means they all have to randomly occur, have all the proper coding equipment, and all need to be associated with each other so they are produced at the same time. All of this has to happen out of pure dumb luck. And even then the only thing it produces may be a slightly longer nose that the chicks find sexy.

It's doesn't add up. Something else is going on that we don't know about.

 

[teknight]

Have you considered that shit started small....and it took a heck of a long time for the first and most simple cell to exist? Have you considered viruses, which are alive, but far more simple than cells. You're ignoring a ton of evolution.


ETA: Care to speculate on the nature of this.."thing" we're missing?

 

[bhndblueyes88]

This is why I don't understand evolution. If the theory of evolution is correct then it must constantly produce useless components that have no functions, until millions of years later when another layer emerges in which all those little components can come together and produce something that has a function, which really has no relation at all to the components other then that they are building blocks within it. Even if you decide sure, it's all a dice game, even then the numbers don't add up. The number of generations in which it happens are less then random chance would require.

I think you only need to take a look at dog breeding to look at a wide range of useless phenotypes

And even in "natural evolution", it could be that, because of the limited scope in which we have to look, we're ascribing use to changes that did not ORIGINALLY have a use. for example, maybe a bird didn't evolve a particular beak for a purpose, but the bird evolved a "useless" beak for its species, so it began eating something else. Maybe my hamster didn't originally have a use for his propensity for chewing the bars of his cage. Now he uses it to ANNOY THE SHIT OUT OF ME WOULD YOU STOP THAT STEWIE!!!!!

*ehm* anyway. I think you could also find useless differences. Is there really a useful difference between a donkey tail and a horse tail? Why did they evolve a difference? Both tails are effective at swatting flies, and, in fact, horses are the ONLY animal with that type of tail. The only use I can ascribe is that it's less vulnerable to be caught on something or eaten, but obviously that's not a huge factor in a species, since every other grazing mammal lives and reproduces fine without that kind of tail. It wouldn't have a very large survival pressure. Not to mention that a tail is totally unnecessary for grazing mammals for anything but flies to begin with. Flies and a small portion of their communication.

 

[YourCaptor]

Have you considered that shit started small....and it took a heck of a long time for the first and most simple cell to exist? Have you considered viruses, which are alive, but far more simple than cells. You're ignoring a ton of evolution.


ETA: Care to speculate on the nature of this.."thing" we're missing?

How it started makes no difference. The amount of randomly generated puzzle pieces required to go from Lucy to use does not fit within that time frame unless the dice are loaded.

I have no idea what it could be. I can guess, it could be some feed back mechanism that somehow recognized which DNA segments produce functional proteins, and treats these segments as blocks when mixing and matching.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I do biological psychology.

Which in short is studying behavior from a biological perspective.

However it gets rather complicated due to the layered nature of biology.

For example your actions functions through networks of neurons, so you have to enter that world. However the neural network world functions due to world inside each cell. Which produces plasticity back in neural network layer, which produces new ideas and behaviors back in the action world, and they you have to figure out how that works on each layer.

You can go into details and define a large amount of layers, all of which need to be consider else you get a huge hole in your theories and it wont add up. And then of course their are all those extra layers which are not considered because they are thought not to play any role that causes change, but you can never be really sure.

You cannot imagine how much I appreciate your caution! Society, IMO, has been badly served by evo-bio dues who jump to pronouncements on the barest of evidence-- bolstered by wishful thinking, also IMO, that they could go out and hunt an Aurochs like a Real HeMan Should. (also IMO)

This is why I don't understand evolution. If the theory of evolution is correct then it must constantly produce useless components that have no functions, until millions of years later when another layer emerges in which all those little components can come together and produce something that has a function, which really has no relation at all to the components other then that they are building blocks within it. Even if you decide sure, it's all a dice game, even then the numbers don't add up. The number of generations in which it happens are less then random chance would require.

and there have been millions of years. Millions and millions. And millions some more.

But even so, once the first proto-life forms came about, they created the pattern for all the rest. Not like dice, but.. maybe like bobbin lace... the first patterns influence the next patterns. the chances are not so random as all that.

The thing people don't understand about evolution is that it's primarily a negative force. if a component is deleterious-- and causes its damage soon enough, before the organism reproduces-- that's when it affects the organism's viability, otherwise not so much. And if it has no effect on the organism, there's no reason for the organsim to shuck that component.

A lot of people talk about eyes as evidence of ID, but there are very visible and demonstrable evolutionary steps towards the visual organs we use. Life forms will use whatever's around, and our sun produces light, so any critter that can use the light-- either to navigate by, or perceive with, or create simple sugars with via chlorophyll-- is going to thrive. And of course, our eyes aren't so well-designed, either. They function well enough that we don't die before we reproduce. Anything else is icing on that cake.

 

[teknight]

How it started makes no difference. The amount of randomly generated puzzle pieces required to go from Lucy to use does not fit within that time frame unless the dice are loaded.

I have no idea what it could be. I can guess, it could be some feed back mechanism that somehow recognized which DNA segments produce functional proteins, and treats these segments as blocks when mixing and matching.

I say you go back and study evo. from the basics.

The amt of random pieces is huge...most of them are bad. only a small number are good.....and the thing is that Lucy was pretty much set up. She didn't have to create everything from scratch.

GO. READ. ABOUT. IT.


ETA: how do you define "random"?

 

[bhndblueyes88]

I say you go back and study evo. from the basics.

The amt of random pieces is huge...most of them are bad. only a small number are good.....and the thing is that Lucy was pretty much set up. She didn't have to create everything from scratch.

GO. READ. ABOUT. IT.


ETA: how do you define "random"?

And just what are your qualifications? no offense, but if its his field he probably has a better idea what's going on than you do.

 

[YourCaptor]

I think you only need to take a look at dog breeding to look at a wide range of useless phenotypes

And even in "natural evolution", it could be that, because of the limited scope in which we have to look, we're ascribing use to changes that did not ORIGINALLY have a use. for example, maybe a bird didn't evolve a particular beak for a purpose, but the bird evolved a "useless" beak for its species, so it began eating something else. Maybe my hamster didn't originally have a use for his propensity for chewing the bars of his cage. Now he uses it to ANNOY THE SHIT OUT OF ME WOULD YOU STOP THAT STEWIE!!!!!

*ehm* anyway. I think you could also find useless differences. Is there really a useful difference between a donkey tail and a horse tail? Why did they evolve a difference? Both tails are effective at swatting flies, and, in fact, horses are the ONLY animal with that type of tail. The only use I can ascribe is that it's less vulnerable to be caught on something or eaten, but obviously that's not a huge factor in a species, since every other grazing mammal lives and reproduces fine without that kind of tail. It wouldn't have a very large survival pressure. Not to mention that a tail is totally unnecessary for grazing mammals for anything but flies to begin with. Flies and a small portion of their communication.

Yes, but what really gets me is the stuff that requires multiple useless things to come together in order to be useful.

Lets say en enzyme for example.

First you would need something that produces 1 or more substrates that the enzyme act on, which by them self really have no purpose at all. They just are, floating around.

Then you need the enzyme that just so happens to fit those substrates like a glove and can turn them into something useful. What are the odds of something useful coming out of 2 random, useless things. Evolution must constantly be trying this thing cause the failure rate must be spectacular.

However lets say that enzyme can't function unless it has an activator. So the whole system is useless until that activator arises by random chance, and has just the right shape to fit the enzyme.

Then you have to ask yourself, what are the odds that all these thing fit together perfectly, because they can't be molded, they just have to randomly happen to be the right shape so that they can all fit together.

Once you have that you get a result, with any one component missing, or shaped slightly wrong, the whole system is useless. It only takes up space and energy, and because of that evolutionary factors would actually work against the organism that has these thing within it, hence thwarting the opportunity for something good to arise even though it's so very close.

That’s like trying to find your way out of a maze by throwing down a bunch of sticks till and arrow arises pointing in a direction. Then doing it over and over again till you get arrows that create a path that leads out of the maze.

And that’s 1 successful trait, you need, say 50 to form a new species, and you can only throw down the sticks once per lifetime.

It’s gonna take a long ass time.

 

[ImOnIt]

And just what are your qualifications? no offense, but if its his field he probably has a better idea what's going on than you do.

Yeah Tek, evolutionary biologists hold the secrets of the universe.Exclusively.

 

[YourCaptor]

You cannot imagine how much I appreciate your caution! Society, IMO, has been badly served by evo-bio dues who jump to pronouncements on the barest of evidence-- bolstered by wishful thinking, also IMO, that they could go out and hunt an Aurochs like a Real HeMan Should. (also IMO) and there have been millions of years. Millions and millions. And millions some more.

But even so, once the first proto-life forms came about, they created the pattern for all the rest. Not like dice, but.. maybe like bobbin lace... the first patterns influence the next patterns. the chances are not so random as all that.

The thing people don't understand about evolution is that it's primarily a negative force. if a component is deleterious-- and causes its damage soon enough, before the organism reproduces-- that's when it affects the organism's viability, otherwise not so much. And if it has no effect on the organism, there's no reason for the organsim to shuck that component.

A lot of people talk about eyes as evidence of ID, but there are very visible and demonstrable evolutionary steps towards the visual organs we use. Life forms will use whatever's around, and our sun produces light, so any critter that can use the light-- either to navigate by, or perceive with, or create simple sugars with via chlorophyll-- is going to thrive. And of course, our eyes aren't so well-designed, either. They function well enough that we don't die before we reproduce. Anything else is icing on that cake.

Yea I hate our eyes, and lots of other things. People who claim intelligent design just need to look at the body. Either god didn't do it, or he was drunk off his ass at the time.

I hate evolution, I don't get it, it don't make sense, and it produces shity results.