Self replicating and evolving RNA molecule created...

[Tom Gardner]

On 25/03/22 14:47, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 25 Mar 2022 11:19:49 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 24/03/2022 23:58, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 21:54:53 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 24/03/2022 17:14, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:00:26 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 23/03/2022 20:32, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:46:28 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

The Blind Watchmaker

I read that, and The Selfish Gene. They were qualitative, repetitious,
and boring. A few pages could have made all his points. Hardly subtle.


And yet you missed all his points.

He only had a couple, none original. Maybe you can summarize his many
original ideas for us.


I have not suggested that he had many ideas. Nor have I suggested that
any of his ideas are original. (Nor am I suggesting that he /hasn\'t/
had many original ideas.)

I merely said you missed his points.

The main point of \"The Blind Watchmaker\" is that there is no such thing
as \"irreducible complexity\" - complex things can evolve from simple
things. Things that might look \"all or nothing\" at first sight, can
develop through evolution. The classic example is the eye.
\"Intelligent design\" fans like to claim \"there\'s no use for half an eye,
therefore the eye could not have evolved\" - but they are totally and
completely wrong, which is easy to demonstrate by looking at the range
of currently living organisms with sight organs that are at different
places on the path between light-sensitive chemicals and advanced eyes.

That is definitely /not/ an original Dawkins idea - Darwin considered it
too, along with every biologist in between.

Apparently, however, it still baffles you.

There is a clear evolutionary path for an eye, with many actual living
examples along the way.


Yes.

It\'s important to remember that the current living examples show how the
current human eye (for example) /might/ have evolved - not how it /did/
evolve. We can look at a nautilus with a \"pin-hole camera\" eye and
understand that was a likely stage in the evolution of the lens eye, but
we did not evolve from modern-day nautiluses.

The replication mechanism for DNA is not so friendly to incremental
design

\"Design\" is a loaded word here - if you used it to mean \"actively
designed by something or someone\", you\'re showing that you still don\'t
grok evolution. If you really meant \"incremental evolution\", then don\'t
write \"design\". Your reputation for confusion, misunderstanding, and a
belief it \"God did it\" precedes you - if you don\'t want to provoke
mocking, be more accurate in what you write.


What makes you say that the current modern mechanism for DNA replication
is not \"friendly\" to incremental evolution? All you can say is that no
one has proposed a plausible development pathway so far - or at fact,
merely none that /you/ have heard of. (I haven\'t heard of one either,
but I know the sum of human knowledge extends somewhat beyond my own
personal knowledge.)

There are three big challenges in looking at the evolutionary history
here. One is that this is all done at the molecular level and happens
fast - it is experimentally extremely challenging to observe what is
really happening.

Secondly, DNA as a genetic structure is extraordinarily successful. If
the RNA World hypothesis is a good approximation of the early life on
earth, then once DNA systems evolved they out-competed RNA-based
lifeforms so completely that there are no traces left (found so far) in
the modern ecosystem. There could have been all sorts of basis for life
in the early history of the earth - we only know about the ones that
survived.

Thirdly, the organisms of that time were very small, and there can be no
fossil records as direct evidence. We have a few ancient rocks where
certain minerals or patterns in the rocks can reasonably be interpreted
as evidence of early microbial life, but that\'s the best we can get -
there is no conceivable way to know if they used DNA or some precursor.


We can, however, look at DNA replication mechanisms in different living
organisms to get some ideas. Roughly speaking, prokaryote and eukaryote
DNS replication has some major differences as well as many similarities.
There are also differences between some groups of prokaryotes. This
gives a good starting point for the evolution from our common ancestor
going forward. We can also look at organisms that have slightly
different variations of the usual DNA base pairs (such as some
bacteriophages that have an alternative form of the \"A\" letter). All
these variations makes it clear that what we have in our own cells is
most certainly not \"irreducible complexity\" or \"all or nothing\".


So how did DNA replication evolve? The correct answer is we don\'t know,
and probably never will know how it /did/ evolve. But we can work
towards better answers for how it /might/ have evolved.

Throwing our arms up and saying \"it\'s all so amazing - it must have been
a god\" is not helpful. (And I don\'t care if you refer to a Christian
god, a Hindu god, an alien robot, intelligent DNA, conscious electrons,
or any other super-natural super-powerful super-intelligent
super-designer - it\'s all the same principle with different names and
different details.)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpHaxzroYxg

Fun stuff at 9:00.



Yes, it\'s amazing stuff, and fun to watch. It does not in any way
collaborate your idea.

You\'re not interested in biology or cool mechanisms or design,
electronic or other wise. You certainly don\'t delight in ideas or fun
machines, or much of anything as far as I can tell.

You hate ideas and speculation.

You seem to delight only in insults. You are just a bitchy old hen.

Maybe you are sick or something. That makes people depressed and
crabby.

That\'s mere repetition of your same old tired tropes, indicating
that you are unable and/or unwilling to listen, think, change your
ideas.

Maybe /you/ are sick or something. That makes people depressed and
crabby.

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 25/03/22 14:49, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 25 Mar 2022 08:48:33 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 24/03/2022 19:13, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:23:14 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 24/03/2022 04:52, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 20:35:52 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 23/03/2022 18:46, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 23/03/22 17:24, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:



Non-Darwinian evolution, jumping genes, epigenetics were not much
welcomed.

Eh? Jumping genes and epigenetics are part of Darwinian evolution.
They are just additional complications to the mechanisms of biological
evolution as we have it in life on earth - they fit within standard
Darwinian evolution. They don\'t fit neatly within the simple model of
getting your traits via genes from your parents - but biologists are
used to things being more complicated when examined more closely.


Viruses use reverse transcription to insert their genome into a host\'s
DNA, who then builds move viruses.

Some viruses do that, but most do not. Retroviruses are only a small
proportion of virus families. (The family includes some big names, like
HIV and hepatitis, but it is only one of many different types of virus.)

RT is used to make cells produce
useful products like insulin.

It is useful in all kinds of artificial genetic modification, as it
provides a pathway for altering the DNA of a cell.


Why would we allow RT to work if all it does is enable viruses?


Are you really suggesting that the cells of eukaryotes evolved (or were
\"designed\") specifically to enable reverse transcription to work,
putting up with some 450 million years of virus infections, just so that
one day humans would evolve and advance enough to be able to use RT to
make insulin?

I am suggesting that reverse transcription may be useful, so was not
eliminated by evolution.

Let me try to be clear about what you are saying.

Why start now?

You won\'t start to try to understand the position he expounds.

He is making a valiant but doomed to attempt to understand your position.

 

[server]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2022 15:12:09 +0000, Tom Gardner
<spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

On 25/03/22 14:49, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Fri, 25 Mar 2022 08:48:33 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 24/03/2022 19:13, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:23:14 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 24/03/2022 04:52, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 20:35:52 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 23/03/2022 18:46, Tom Gardner wrote:
On 23/03/22 17:24, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:



Non-Darwinian evolution, jumping genes, epigenetics were not much
welcomed.

Eh? Jumping genes and epigenetics are part of Darwinian evolution.
They are just additional complications to the mechanisms of biological
evolution as we have it in life on earth - they fit within standard
Darwinian evolution. They don\'t fit neatly within the simple model of
getting your traits via genes from your parents - but biologists are
used to things being more complicated when examined more closely.


Viruses use reverse transcription to insert their genome into a host\'s
DNA, who then builds move viruses.

Some viruses do that, but most do not. Retroviruses are only a small
proportion of virus families. (The family includes some big names, like
HIV and hepatitis, but it is only one of many different types of virus.)

RT is used to make cells produce
useful products like insulin.

It is useful in all kinds of artificial genetic modification, as it
provides a pathway for altering the DNA of a cell.


Why would we allow RT to work if all it does is enable viruses?


Are you really suggesting that the cells of eukaryotes evolved (or were
\"designed\") specifically to enable reverse transcription to work,
putting up with some 450 million years of virus infections, just so that
one day humans would evolve and advance enough to be able to use RT to
make insulin?

I am suggesting that reverse transcription may be useful, so was not
eliminated by evolution.

Let me try to be clear about what you are saying.

Why start now?

You won\'t start to try to understand the position he expounds.

The position he expounds is that I\'m ignorant and stupid. I confess
that I don\'t understand that.

He is making a valiant but doomed to attempt to understand your position.

I see no attempts to understand anything. Just reflex insults.

My position, and my profession, is to be curious about systems and
ideas, and to consider possibilities no matter how whimsical or
apparently improbable, because they might turn out to work, or might
be a path to other ideas, or just because they are fun to think about.

That attitude sure seems to offend you and your buddy. Expert
biologists like you seem to be a dogmatic lot.



--

I yam what I yam - Popeye

 

[David Brown]

On 25/03/2022 15:47, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Fri, 25 Mar 2022 11:19:49 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 24/03/2022 23:58, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 21:54:53 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 24/03/2022 17:14, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:00:26 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 23/03/2022 20:32, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:46:28 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

The Blind Watchmaker

I read that, and The Selfish Gene. They were qualitative, repetitious,
and boring. A few pages could have made all his points. Hardly subtle.


And yet you missed all his points.

He only had a couple, none original. Maybe you can summarize his many
original ideas for us.


I have not suggested that he had many ideas. Nor have I suggested that
any of his ideas are original. (Nor am I suggesting that he /hasn\'t/
had many original ideas.)

I merely said you missed his points.

The main point of \"The Blind Watchmaker\" is that there is no such thing
as \"irreducible complexity\" - complex things can evolve from simple
things. Things that might look \"all or nothing\" at first sight, can
develop through evolution. The classic example is the eye.
\"Intelligent design\" fans like to claim \"there\'s no use for half an eye,
therefore the eye could not have evolved\" - but they are totally and
completely wrong, which is easy to demonstrate by looking at the range
of currently living organisms with sight organs that are at different
places on the path between light-sensitive chemicals and advanced eyes.

That is definitely /not/ an original Dawkins idea - Darwin considered it
too, along with every biologist in between.

Apparently, however, it still baffles you.

There is a clear evolutionary path for an eye, with many actual living
examples along the way.


Yes.

It\'s important to remember that the current living examples show how the
current human eye (for example) /might/ have evolved - not how it /did/
evolve. We can look at a nautilus with a \"pin-hole camera\" eye and
understand that was a likely stage in the evolution of the lens eye, but
we did not evolve from modern-day nautiluses.

The replication mechanism for DNA is not so friendly to incremental
design

\"Design\" is a loaded word here - if you used it to mean \"actively
designed by something or someone\", you\'re showing that you still don\'t
grok evolution. If you really meant \"incremental evolution\", then don\'t
write \"design\". Your reputation for confusion, misunderstanding, and a
belief it \"God did it\" precedes you - if you don\'t want to provoke
mocking, be more accurate in what you write.


What makes you say that the current modern mechanism for DNA replication
is not \"friendly\" to incremental evolution? All you can say is that no
one has proposed a plausible development pathway so far - or at fact,
merely none that /you/ have heard of. (I haven\'t heard of one either,
but I know the sum of human knowledge extends somewhat beyond my own
personal knowledge.)

There are three big challenges in looking at the evolutionary history
here. One is that this is all done at the molecular level and happens
fast - it is experimentally extremely challenging to observe what is
really happening.

Secondly, DNA as a genetic structure is extraordinarily successful. If
the RNA World hypothesis is a good approximation of the early life on
earth, then once DNA systems evolved they out-competed RNA-based
lifeforms so completely that there are no traces left (found so far) in
the modern ecosystem. There could have been all sorts of basis for life
in the early history of the earth - we only know about the ones that
survived.

Thirdly, the organisms of that time were very small, and there can be no
fossil records as direct evidence. We have a few ancient rocks where
certain minerals or patterns in the rocks can reasonably be interpreted
as evidence of early microbial life, but that\'s the best we can get -
there is no conceivable way to know if they used DNA or some precursor.


We can, however, look at DNA replication mechanisms in different living
organisms to get some ideas. Roughly speaking, prokaryote and eukaryote
DNS replication has some major differences as well as many similarities.
There are also differences between some groups of prokaryotes. This
gives a good starting point for the evolution from our common ancestor
going forward. We can also look at organisms that have slightly
different variations of the usual DNA base pairs (such as some
bacteriophages that have an alternative form of the \"A\" letter). All
these variations makes it clear that what we have in our own cells is
most certainly not \"irreducible complexity\" or \"all or nothing\".


So how did DNA replication evolve? The correct answer is we don\'t know,
and probably never will know how it /did/ evolve. But we can work
towards better answers for how it /might/ have evolved.

Throwing our arms up and saying \"it\'s all so amazing - it must have been
a god\" is not helpful. (And I don\'t care if you refer to a Christian
god, a Hindu god, an alien robot, intelligent DNA, conscious electrons,
or any other super-natural super-powerful super-intelligent
super-designer - it\'s all the same principle with different names and
different details.)



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpHaxzroYxg

Fun stuff at 9:00.



Yes, it\'s amazing stuff, and fun to watch. It does not in any way
collaborate your idea.

You\'re not interested in biology or cool mechanisms or design,
electronic or other wise. You certainly don\'t delight in ideas or fun
machines, or much of anything as far as I can tell.

You hate ideas and speculation.

You seem to delight only in insults. You are just a bitchy old hen.

Maybe you are sick or something. That makes people depressed and
crabby.

/That/ is your take on my post? I gave a detailed and clear discussion
about DNA replication and where reality differs from your ideas. I
didn\'t mock, or insult - I explained. I\'m trying to /educate/ you, you
silly little excuse for a person. You are pathetic, a hopeless case. I
don\'t /hate/ you - I /pity/ you.

Get back to us once you finally realise that you are the epitome of the
Dunning-Kruger effect. You can\'t read, you can\'t think, you can\'t
listen - but somewhere along the line you\'ve picked up a load of shite
from the criminals that prey on the weak-minded and gullible, and you
think that makes you an expert whose ideas are holy.

I don\'t \"delight\" in insults - but I hope that one day a strong enough
dose of the truth about yourself will make a dent in your ignorant
arrogance, and maybe you\'ll come to understand that when everyone else
rejects your \"ideas\", it\'s not because everyone else hates ideas, but it
is because your ideas are worthless.

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Fri, 25 Mar 2022 09:47:46 +0100, David Brown
<david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 24/03/2022 22:26, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 21:54:53 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

[snip]

I agree - dogma is not good. Scientists don\'t go in for dogma. They
expect theories to be very well justified with solid evidence,
experiments and theoretical backing before they accept them as
\"scientific fact\". And even then, it is only as \"the current best
theory\" which every scientist would love to prove wrong.


I beg to disagree - some scientists do issue dogma, by that name:

.<https://www.yourgenome.org/facts/what-is-the-central-dogma

.<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_dogma_of_molecular_biology


To quote from the Wikipedia link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_dogma_of_molecular_biology#Use_of_the_term_dogma
:

\"\"\"
Use of the term dogma

In his autobiography, What Mad Pursuit, Crick wrote about his choice of
the word dogma and some of the problems it caused him:

\"I called this idea the central dogma, for two reasons, I suspect. I
had already used the obvious word hypothesis in the sequence hypothesis,
and in addition I wanted to suggest that this new assumption was more
central and more powerful. ... As it turned out, the use of the word
dogma caused almost more trouble than it was worth. Many years later
Jacques Monod pointed out to me that I did not appear to understand the
correct use of the word dogma, which is a belief that cannot be doubted.
I did apprehend this in a vague sort of way but since I thought that all
religious beliefs were without foundation, I used the word the way I
myself thought about it, not as most of the world does, and simply
applied it to a grand hypothesis that, however plausible, had little
direct experimental support.\"

Similarly, Horace Freeland Judson records in The Eighth Day of Creation:[19]

\"My mind was, that a dogma was an idea for which there was no
reasonable evidence. You see?!\" And Crick gave a roar of delight. \"I
just didn\'t know what dogma meant. And I could just as well have called
it the \'Central Hypothesis,\' or — you know. Which is what I meant to
say. Dogma was just a catch phrase.\"

\"\"\"


Despite the name, it is not \"dogma\". When it was formed, the authors
did not have enough nearly evidence to call it a \"theory\". And like all
science, it will be changed or replaced as soon as anyone finds clear
evidence that contradicts it.

It turns out that individual scientists are humans too - they use words
incorrectly, or where the interpretations could be different. They pick
names that sound good, even though they are not precise. (\"String
theory\" is /very/ far from being a scientific theory.)

Heh. As I mentioned elsewhere, calling it the Central Dogma was a
joke, intended to brush back just those above folk. But I\'ll grant
that maybe the joke worked rather too well.

Sort of like how the Big Bang was named.

..<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#:~:text=English%20astronomer%20Fred%20Hoyle%20is,time%20in%20the%20remote%20past.%22>

Joe Gwinn

 

[Joe Gwinn]

On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 15:58:34 -0700, John Larkin
<jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 21:54:53 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 24/03/2022 17:14, jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:00:26 +0100, David Brown
david.brown@hesbynett.no> wrote:

On 23/03/2022 20:32, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:46:28 +0000, Tom Gardner
spamjunk@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

The Blind Watchmaker

I read that, and The Selfish Gene. They were qualitative, repetitious,
and boring. A few pages could have made all his points. Hardly subtle.


And yet you missed all his points.

He only had a couple, none original. Maybe you can summarize his many
original ideas for us.


I have not suggested that he had many ideas. Nor have I suggested that
any of his ideas are original. (Nor am I suggesting that he /hasn\'t/
had many original ideas.)

I merely said you missed his points.

The main point of \"The Blind Watchmaker\" is that there is no such thing
as \"irreducible complexity\" - complex things can evolve from simple
things. Things that might look \"all or nothing\" at first sight, can
develop through evolution. The classic example is the eye.
\"Intelligent design\" fans like to claim \"there\'s no use for half an eye,
therefore the eye could not have evolved\" - but they are totally and
completely wrong, which is easy to demonstrate by looking at the range
of currently living organisms with sight organs that are at different
places on the path between light-sensitive chemicals and advanced eyes.

That is definitely /not/ an original Dawkins idea - Darwin considered it
too, along with every biologist in between.

Apparently, however, it still baffles you.

There is a clear evolutionary path for an eye, with many actual living
examples along the way.

The replication mechanism for DNA is not so friendly to incremental
design

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpHaxzroYxg

Fun stuff at 9:00.






Dawkins is a self-admitted agressive atheist.

You make that sound like a bad thing.

Yes. Strong emotions constrain logical thinking.


Atheism is restricted to logical thinking, precisely because it does not
accept illogical and unjustified arguments. (It is happy to accept \"we
don\'t know\".) If you have ever actually read things he has written, or
listened to him talk, or watched a Youtube video of him, you\'ll notice
he does not get emotionally worked up or make unsubstantiated appeals to
supposed authority, as some of his debate opponents do.

Call Dawkins boring, or repetitive, or unoriginal if you like. But
suggesting he can\'t think logically because of strong emotions is laughable.


That corrals all his
thinking.


It means he /thinks/. People following religious dogma avoid thinking
by getting their unquestionable answers presented to them. They are
encouraged /not/ to think too deeply, because then they\'d see all the
inconsistencies and how the answers they\'ve been given don\'t actually
match the questions. Atheists, on the other hand, /do/ get to think,
learn and discover things, because they accept that we don\'t have all
the answers.

Why is anti-religious dogma any better than religious? Both put some
ideas off-limits.

I agree - dogma is not good. Scientists don\'t go in for dogma. They
expect theories to be very well justified with solid evidence,
experiments and theoretical backing before they accept them as
\"scientific fact\". And even then, it is only as \"the current best
theory\" which every scientist would love to prove wrong.

There is no solid evidence or experiment that shows a path from
inorganics to DNA based living cells. But RNA World is accepted and
suggestions that there could be other paths are mocked. Lots of people
hate their work to be proven wrong. I\'ve been to some scientific
conferences where people were very unwilling to be wrong. Viciously
so.

Scientists have emotions too. \"Science progresses one funeral at a
time.\"

The classic example was Newton\'s persecution of the fellow that
discovered the achromat lens. Newton had declared chromatic
aberration to be impossible to remedy (which is why he invented the
Newtonian Telescope), only to be refuted by this upstart, whom he
destroyed. This endured until Newton\'s death. (from the SED thread
\"Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!\" in May 2013.)

Joe Gwinn

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 8:03:15 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn wrote:

On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 15:58:34 -0700, John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 21:54:53 +0100, David Brown <david...@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 24/03/2022 17:14, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:00:26 +0100, David Brown <david...@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 23/03/2022 20:32, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:46:28 +0000, Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

<snip>

I agree - dogma is not good. Scientists don\'t go in for dogma. They
expect theories to be very well justified with solid evidence,
experiments and theoretical backing before they accept them as
\"scientific fact\". And even then, it is only as \"the current best
theory\" which every scientist would love to prove wrong.

There is no solid evidence or experiment that shows a path from
inorganics to DNA based living cells. But RNA World is accepted and
suggestions that there could be other paths are mocked. Lots of people
hate their work to be proven wrong. I\'ve been to some scientific
conferences where people were very unwilling to be wrong. Viciously
so.

Scientists have emotions too. \"Science progresses one funeral at a
time.\"

The classic example was Newton\'s persecution of the fellow that
discovered the achromat lens. Newton had declared chromatic
aberration to be impossible to remedy (which is why he invented the
Newtonian Telescope), only to be refuted by this upstart, whom he
destroyed. This endured until Newton\'s death. (from the SED thread
\"Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!\" in May 2013.)

Since Newton wasn\'t a scientist - the word wasn\'t coined until 1833

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientist

he\'s not a great example of scientific behavior. It certainly isn\'t any kind of classic example.

\"Science progresses one funeral at a time.\" is a paraphrase of something Max Planck (1858 to 1947) wrote. Some of his contemporaries did behave that badly, but Planck himself was remarkably open-minded.

Scientists want other people to exploit the work they have done. Newton probably invent calculus, but he called it the method of fluxions, and didn\'t teach it to anybody else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz

came up with the same idea, but told other people about it, and we use his notation, not Newton\'s.

That is a classical example of scientific behavior (though Leibniz wouldn\'t have called himself a scientist either).

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[David Brown]

On 25/03/2022 21:41, Joe Gwinn wrote:

Heh. As I mentioned elsewhere, calling it the Central Dogma was a
joke, intended to brush back just those above folk. But I\'ll grant
that maybe the joke worked rather too well.

Sort of like how the Big Bang was named.

.<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang#:~:text=English%20astronomer%20Fred%20Hoyle%20is,time%20in%20the%20remote%20past.%22

Joe Gwinn

Or \"The God Particle\". Scientists can be very naïve in the face of
scientifically-illiterate media looking for a good story, and happy to
take things out of context to get it.

 

[David Brown]

On 26/03/2022 03:21, Anthony William Sloman wrote:

On Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 8:03:15 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 15:58:34 -0700, John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

Scientists have emotions too. \"Science progresses one funeral at a
time.\"

The classic example was Newton\'s persecution of the fellow that
discovered the achromat lens. Newton had declared chromatic
aberration to be impossible to remedy (which is why he invented the
Newtonian Telescope), only to be refuted by this upstart, whom he
destroyed. This endured until Newton\'s death. (from the SED thread
\"Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!\" in May 2013.)

Since Newton wasn\'t a scientist - the word wasn\'t coined until 1833

Of course Newton was a scientist - the dating of the term is irrelevant.
Do you also claim he was not a homo sapien, since that term was coined
in 1758?

But he was also a rather nasty person, possibly somewhat mentally
damaged from all the mercury fumes he inhaled in his alchemy
experiments, and was well-known for using his power and influence to
attack rivals.

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 9:46:25 PM UTC+11, David Brown wrote:

On 26/03/2022 03:21, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 8:03:15 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 15:58:34 -0700, John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

Scientists have emotions too. \"Science progresses one funeral at a
time.\"

The classic example was Newton\'s persecution of the fellow that
discovered the achromat lens. Newton had declared chromatic
aberration to be impossible to remedy (which is why he invented the
Newtonian Telescope), only to be refuted by this upstart, whom he
destroyed. This endured until Newton\'s death. (from the SED thread
\"Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!\" in May 2013.)

Since Newton wasn\'t a scientist - the word wasn\'t coined until 1833

<big unmarked snip there>

> Of course Newton was a scientist - the dating of the term is irrelevant.

Being a \"scientist\' means you behave in a particular way. As I wrote - and you snipped

\"Scientists want other people to exploit the work they have done. Newton probably invent calculus, but he called it the method of fluxions, and didn\'t teach it to anybody else.\"

> Do you also claim he was not a homo sapien, since that term was coined in 1758?

That essentially refers to his genome, and we\'ve been around for some 150,000 years.

Science is a social activity. Doing evidence-based research is part of it and we\'ve been doing that since classical times, but publishing your results to make them accessible to other scientists is a fairly important part of that, and Newton published to assert his status, rather than to help other people.

But he was also a rather nasty person, possibly somewhat mentally
damaged from all the mercury fumes he inhaled in his alchemy
experiments, and was well-known for using his power and influence to
attack rivals.

He was an active member of the Royal Society, but used his status there to attack rivals - as you say. He contributed a lot to science, but was truly rotten collaborator.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[David Brown]

On 26/03/2022 14:25, Anthony William Sloman wrote:

On Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 9:46:25 PM UTC+11, David Brown wrote:
On 26/03/2022 03:21, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 8:03:15 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 15:58:34 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

Scientists have emotions too. \"Science progresses one funeral
at a time.\"

The classic example was Newton\'s persecution of the fellow that
discovered the achromat lens. Newton had declared chromatic
aberration to be impossible to remedy (which is why he invented
the Newtonian Telescope), only to be refuted by this upstart,
whom he destroyed. This endured until Newton\'s death. (from the
SED thread \"Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!\" in May 2013.)

Since Newton wasn\'t a scientist - the word wasn\'t coined until
1833

big unmarked snip there

This is a Usenet group. Despite the appalling habits of many regulars
here, snipping is standard practice - and obvious snipping doesn\'t need
marking.

Of course Newton was a scientist - the dating of the term is
irrelevant.

Being a \"scientist\' means you behave in a particular way. As I wrote
- and you snipped

\"Scientists want other people to exploit the work they have done.
Newton probably invent calculus, but he called it the method of
fluxions, and didn\'t teach it to anybody else.\"

Yes, I snipped parts that were wrong or irrelevant to the point.

Newton published some 5 or 6 books on the science and mathematics he
developed by research, experimentation, calculations and study. That is
\"being a scientist\" and \"teaching other people\". He was a mathematics
professor at Cambridge - another hint that he taught people.

He was also an evil, selfish git who almost certainly back-dated some of
his thoughts about calculus in order to justify his claims of having
invented it before Leibniz.

Do you also claim he was not a homo sapien, since that term was
coined in 1758?

<snip the wrong and irrelevant bits>

You said he was not a \"scientist\" because the word \"scientist\" did not
exist. By the same logic, he was not a \"homo sapien\". You are in a
hole - there is no need to make it deeper. We all say silly things, or
express ourselves badly at times.

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Sunday, March 27, 2022 at 12:40:44 AM UTC+11, David Brown wrote:

On 26/03/2022 14:25, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 9:46:25 PM UTC+11, David Brown wrote:
On 26/03/2022 03:21, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 8:03:15 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn
wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 15:58:34 -0700, John Larkin
jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:

Scientists have emotions too. \"Science progresses one funeral
at a time.\"

The classic example was Newton\'s persecution of the fellow that
discovered the achromat lens. Newton had declared chromatic
aberration to be impossible to remedy (which is why he invented
the Newtonian Telescope), only to be refuted by this upstart,
whom he destroyed. This endured until Newton\'s death. (from the
SED thread \"Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!\" in May 2013.)

Since Newton wasn\'t a scientist - the word wasn\'t coined until
1833

big unmarked snip there
This is a Usenet group. Despite the appalling habits of many regulars
here, snipping is standard practice - and obvious snipping doesn\'t need
marking.

Of course Newton was a scientist - the dating of the term is
irrelevant.

Being a \"scientist\' means you behave in a particular way. As I wrote
- and you snipped

\"Scientists want other people to exploit the work they have done.
Newton probably invent calculus, but he called it the method of
fluxions, and didn\'t teach it to anybody else.\"

Yes, I snipped parts that were wrong or irrelevant to the point.

What you thought was the point. The point is that behaving like a scientist is a tolerably modern invention. The behavior was being developed before the word was coined in 1833, but Newton wasn\'t behaving much like a modern scientist - unlike his contemporaries, Hooke. Wren and Leibniz.

Newton published some 5 or 6 books on the science and mathematics he
developed by research, experimentation, calculations and study. That is
\"being a scientist\" and \"teaching other people\". He was a mathematics
professor at Cambridge - another hint that he taught people.

But he didn\'t teach them about the calculus he\'d invented.

He was also an evil, selfish git who almost certainly back-dated some of
his thoughts about calculus in order to justify his claims of having
invented it before Leibniz.

Do you also claim he was not a homo sapien, since that term was
coined in 1758?

snip the wrong and irrelevant bits

The point was that you could be a homo sapiens before 1758 - that depends on your biology, and the species has been around for some 150,000 years even if that particular name was coined recently. Science - as we currently understand it - is a more recent invention. There were people who did behave like modern scientists before 1833, but Newton wasn\'t one of them.

> You said he was not a \"scientist\" because the word \"scientist\" did not exist. By the same logic, he was not a \"homo sapien\".

It\'s not the same logic, and I did go on to make the point that he didn\'t act like a modern scientist. He concealed the mathematical tools he exploited to do his calculations.

> You are in a hole - there is no need to make it deeper. We all say silly things, or express ourselves badly at times.

You are being remarkably silly here. I didn\'t make the point about Newton not being a scientist precisely enough for you to realise what I was saying, and perhaps you might have got the point if I spent more time on elaboration, but Newton\'s efforts make himself look important went on for quite a while, and were quite as effective as you\'d expect from a man of his talents.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

Somehow. But RNA World requires at least as much faith as \"God did
it.\"

It is interesting that some people so fiercely oppose the very idea of
some chemical blob coming into existence spontaneously and yet at the
same time they have no slightest doubt in the pre-existence of an
infinitely more complex and capable entity. Some even believe its
capabilities are literally unconstrained and somehow they know there is
only one of this species. Logic wept.

Best regards, Piotr

 

[David Brown]

On 26/03/2022 23:16, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
<snip>

Look, you said Newton wasn\'t a scientist because the /word/ \"scientist\"
did not exist at the time. If that\'s not what you meant, you should
have said so when the ridiculousness of that claim was first pointed
out. We all express ourselves badly on occasion.

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Sunday, March 27, 2022 at 9:36:53 PM UTC+11, David Brown wrote:

On 26/03/2022 23:16, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
snip

Look, you said Newton wasn\'t a scientist because the /word/ \"scientist\"
did not exist at the time. If that\'s not what you meant, you should
have said so when the ridiculousness of that claim was first pointed
out. We all express ourselves badly on occasion.

That\'s the way you read it. If you had kept on reading, you would have got to

\"Scientists want other people to exploit the work they have done. Newton probably invented calculus, but he called it the method of fluxions, and didn\'t teach it to anybody else.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz

came up with the same idea, but told other people about it, and we use his notation, not Newton\'s.

That is a classical example of scientific behavior (though Leibniz wouldn\'t have called himself a scientist either).\"

Because you only read the line you objected to, you didn\'t get to the more subtle point I was making. This is the sort of reaction Flyguy produces.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Martin Brown]

On 26/03/2022 02:21, Anthony William Sloman wrote:

On Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 8:03:15 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 15:58:34 -0700, John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 21:54:53 +0100, David Brown <david...@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 24/03/2022 17:14, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:00:26 +0100, David Brown <david...@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 23/03/2022 20:32, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:46:28 +0000, Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

snip

I agree - dogma is not good. Scientists don\'t go in for dogma. They
expect theories to be very well justified with solid evidence,
experiments and theoretical backing before they accept them as
\"scientific fact\". And even then, it is only as \"the current best
theory\" which every scientist would love to prove wrong.

There is no solid evidence or experiment that shows a path from
inorganics to DNA based living cells. But RNA World is accepted and
suggestions that there could be other paths are mocked. Lots of people
hate their work to be proven wrong. I\'ve been to some scientific
conferences where people were very unwilling to be wrong. Viciously
so.

Scientists have emotions too. \"Science progresses one funeral at a
time.\"

The classic example was Newton\'s persecution of the fellow that
discovered the achromat lens. Newton had declared chromatic
aberration to be impossible to remedy (which is why he invented the
Newtonian Telescope), only to be refuted by this upstart, whom he
destroyed. This endured until Newton\'s death. (from the SED thread
\"Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!\" in May 2013.)

Since Newton wasn\'t a scientist - the word wasn\'t coined until 1833

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientist

he\'s not a great example of scientific behavior. It certainly isn\'t any kind of classic example.

I think he was. Although he also had his disagreeable side as well.

Poor old Hooke got a lot less credit than he deserved. He did have the
odd best seller to his name though. His Micrographia is stunning!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrographia

Both of them were Natural Philosophers and members of the Royal Society
which was what scientists were called back in their day. It is
considered quite likely that Hooke gave Newton the idea of an inverse
square law for gravity but his own mathematics was not up to solving it.

\"Science progresses one funeral at a time.\" is a paraphrase of something Max Planck (1858 to 1947) wrote. Some of his contemporaries did behave that badly, but Planck himself was remarkably open-minded.

That is unduly cynical.

Most scientific discoveries are sufficiently robust to be celebrated
well within the lifetime of their discoverer and usually with the award
of a Nobel Prize.

A few stubborn refusniks refuse to accept the new theories but they
quickly become irrelevant to the frontiers of science. Fred Hoyle\'s
Steady State theory vs Martin Ryle\'s observations of radio galaxies
being one such recent example. Huge egos and a very vicious fight!

Scientists want other people to exploit the work they have done. Newton probably invent calculus, but he called it the method of fluxions, and didn\'t teach it to anybody else.

Actually he did although we should all give thanks that the notation
normally used is that due to Leibnitz and not Newtons.

f\' and f\" still survive to this day. It wasn\'t published until after his
death but it was written in 1761. He kept it as a trade secret and back
constructed opaque geometrical proofs using his results by fluxions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_Fluxions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz

came up with the same idea, but told other people about it, and we use his notation, not Newton\'s.

Speak for yourself. Both notations are still in use even today. Leibnitz
notatio is the common one but f\' and f\" still abound in physics texts.

That is a classical example of scientific behavior (though Leibniz wouldn\'t have called himself a scientist either).

They were all Natural Philosophers back then and/or Mathematicians and
quite a few also dabbled in Alchemy (definitely not a science then).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Sunday, March 27, 2022 at 11:59:20 PM UTC+11, Martin Brown wrote:

On 26/03/2022 02:21, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
On Saturday, March 26, 2022 at 8:03:15 AM UTC+11, Joe Gwinn wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 15:58:34 -0700, John Larkin <jlarkin@highland_atwork_technology.com> wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 21:54:53 +0100, David Brown <david...@hesbynett.no> wrote:
On 24/03/2022 17:14, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 24 Mar 2022 10:00:26 +0100, David Brown <david...@hesbynett..no> wrote:
On 23/03/2022 20:32, John Larkin wrote:
On Wed, 23 Mar 2022 17:46:28 +0000, Tom Gardner <spam...@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:

snip

I agree - dogma is not good. Scientists don\'t go in for dogma. They
expect theories to be very well justified with solid evidence,
experiments and theoretical backing before they accept them as
\"scientific fact\". And even then, it is only as \"the current best
theory\" which every scientist would love to prove wrong.

There is no solid evidence or experiment that shows a path from
inorganics to DNA based living cells. But RNA World is accepted and
suggestions that there could be other paths are mocked. Lots of people
hate their work to be proven wrong. I\'ve been to some scientific
conferences where people were very unwilling to be wrong. Viciously
so.

Scientists have emotions too. \"Science progresses one funeral at a
time.\"

The classic example was Newton\'s persecution of the fellow that
discovered the achromat lens. Newton had declared chromatic
aberration to be impossible to remedy (which is why he invented the
Newtonian Telescope), only to be refuted by this upstart, whom he
destroyed. This endured until Newton\'s death. (from the SED thread
\"Edison Did Not Invent Light Bulb!\" in May 2013.)

Since Newton wasn\'t a scientist - the word wasn\'t coined until 1833

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientist

he\'s not a great example of scientific behavior. It certainly isn\'t any kind of classic example.

I think he was. Although he also had his disagreeable side as well.

He might have been a great example of intellectual exploration, but he wasn\'t a great contributor to his colleagues. Science isn\'t just about inventing stuff - where Newton was brilliant - but it\'s also about creating an intellectual environment where the rest of scientific community builds on your work, where Newton really didn\'t want to bother.

Poor old Hooke got a lot less credit than he deserved. He did have the
odd best seller to his name though. His Micrographia is stunning!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micrographia

https://www.amazon.com.au/Curious-Life-Robert-Hooke-Measured/dp/0007151756/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2L712TSLAQIE7&keywords=biography+of+%22Robert+Hooke%22&qid=1648387149&s=books&sprefix=biography+of+%22robert+hooke+%2Cstripbooks%2C258&sr=1-3

I met Lisa Jardine once , shortly before she died, and was able to say how much I\'d liked her biography of Hooke. Neal Stepehson\'s Baroque Trilogy also paints a positive picture of him.

Both of them were Natural Philosophers and members of the Royal Society
which was what scientists were called back in their day.

Hooke was the secretary for years, and did a great deal of the scientific donkey work. Newton wasn\'t active in the society until much later, and mainly exploited it to boost his own reputation

It is considered quite likely that Hooke gave Newton the idea of an inverse
square law for gravity but his own mathematics was not up to solving it.

Hooke and Wren did play with the idea. Newton\'s line about standing on the shoulders of giants has a certain rudeness to it - neither Hooke nor Wren were tall.

\"Science progresses one funeral at a time.\" is a paraphrase of something Max Planck (1858 to 1947) wrote. Some of his contemporaries did behave that badly, but Planck himself was remarkably open-minded.

That is unduly cynical.

Max Planck may have had Ernst Mach in mind, and some of the people who rejected relativity as \"Jewish science\".

> Most scientific discoveries are sufficiently robust to be celebrated well within the lifetime of their discoverer and usually with the award of a Nobel Prize.

Few scientific discoveries earn a Nobel Prize.

> A few stubborn refusniks refuse to accept the new theories but they quickly become irrelevant to the frontiers of science.

Quite a few of Max Planck\'s contemporaries were remarkably stubborn refusniks.

Fred Hoyle\'s Steady State theory vs Martin Ryle\'s observations of radio galaxies being one such recent example. Huge egos and a very vicious fight!

Scientists want other people to exploit the work they have done. Newton probably invent calculus, but he called it the method of fluxions, and didn\'t teach it to anybody else.

Actually he did although we should all give thanks that the notation normally used is that due to Leibnitz and not Newton\'s.

Not until Leibniz had published in detail, and Newton was trying to claim priority.

f\' and f\" still survive to this day. It wasn\'t published until after his
death but it was written in 1761. He kept it as a trade secret and back
constructed opaque geometrical proofs using his results by fluxions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_Fluxions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottfried_Wilhelm_Leibniz

came up with the same idea, but told other people about it, and we use his notation, not Newton\'s.

Speak for yourself. Both notations are still in use even today. Leibnitz
notation is the common one but f\' and f\" still abound in physics texts.

It drove me nuts. It\'s comprehensible, but it has always stuck me as an affectation.

That is a classical example of scientific behavior (though Leibniz wouldn\'t have called himself a scientist either).

They were all Natural Philosophers back then and/or Mathematicians and
quite a few also dabbled in Alchemy (definitely not a science then).

But some of them were a lot further along the path to modern science than others - in the sense of working with other natural philopsophers in a joint venture.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[server]

On Sun, 27 Mar 2022 09:19:34 +0200, Piotr Wyderski
<bombald@protonmail.com> wrote:

jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

Somehow. But RNA World requires at least as much faith as \"God did
it.\"

It is interesting that some people so fiercely oppose the very idea of
some chemical blob coming into existence spontaneously and yet at the
same time they have no slightest doubt in the pre-existence of an
infinitely more complex and capable entity. Some even believe its
capabilities are literally unconstrained and somehow they know there is
only one of this species. Logic wept.

Best regards, Piotr

Since you are replying to my post, I guess you are describing me.
Entirely falsely.

You are being illogical, not me. I never declared any source of life
to be of \"no slightest doubt.\" I did suggest that various things might
be possible, some interesting and some silly but none impossible. I
guess designing electronics made me this way, always ready for
surprises.

Given that nobody knows how life originated, declaring anything
impossible actually needs proof.

People keep accusing me of being a religious fundamentalist because I
dare to think about anything but primordial soup and random mutation.

Agressive atheism shuts off thinking more than attending church on
Sunday.



--

I yam what I yam - Popeye

 

[Piotr Wyderski]

jlarkin@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

> Since you are replying to my post, I guess you are describing me.

Not sure if you, as you are doing your best to bring a lot of fog.

Given that nobody knows how life originated, declaring anything
impossible actually needs proof.

But these guys do not claim they know how life originated. They were
merely able to demonstrate in the lab that their approach works. Whilst
it may or may not have anything in common with the origin of terrestrial
life, this is a very viable answer. The folks claiming otherwise, even
from the very center of the mainstream science, have nothing even
remotely resembling what the RNA guys have done. So the RNA hypothesis
is just more credible, but not the only explanation.

People keep accusing me of being a religious fundamentalist because I
dare to think about anything but primordial soup and random mutation.

I am fine with you being a religious fundamentalist, nobody\'s perfect.
I just say that if you call gods (or aliens) to the rescue, you must
explain the mechanism that created those gods (or aliens), not me. I
don\'t buy \"a diode couldn\'t have been spontaneously created, but if you
assume the pre-existence of a supercomputer the size of the US that
designed them, things start looking different\" line of thinking. Show me
the supercomputer and explain its origin.

Best regards, Piotr

 

[Anthony William Sloman]

On Monday, March 28, 2022 at 2:27:18 AM UTC+11, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

On Sun, 27 Mar 2022 09:19:34 +0200, Piotr Wyderski
bom...@protonmail.com> wrote:
jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:

Somehow. But RNA World requires at least as much faith as \"God did
it.\"

It is interesting that some people so fiercely oppose the very idea of
some chemical blob coming into existence spontaneously and yet at the
same time they have no slightest doubt in the pre-existence of an
infinitely more complex and capable entity. Some even believe its
capabilities are literally unconstrained and somehow they know there is
only one of this species. Logic wept.

Since you are replying to my post, I guess you are describing me.
Entirely falsely.

Not all that incorrectly. Your self-image is shaped by your vanity,

You are being illogical, not me. I never declared any source of life
to be of \"no slightest doubt.\" I did suggest that various things might
be possible, some interesting and some silly but none impossible. I
guess designing electronics made me this way, always ready for
surprises.

You\'d run into fewer of them if you could actually design your electronics.

Given that nobody knows how life originated, declaring anything impossible actually needs proof.

People keep accusing me of being a religious fundamentalist because I dare to think about anything but primordial soup and random mutation.

Actually, the problem is that you read intelligent design propaganda, don\'t understand that it is propaganda, and recycle it as if were your own invention. You do the same with climate denial propaganda.

> Agressive atheism shuts off thinking more than attending church on Sunday.

Neither has any necessary effect on peoples willingness to think. You don\'t seem to be able to think for yourself at all, so your ideas on the subject are entirely worthless.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney