| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Budikka" |
| Date: |
25 Aug 2003 10:41:09 PM |
| Object: |
Evolution in Action? |
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3169541.stm
reveals the discovery of what is apparently a milder from of SARS:
"An expert from the World Health Organization has travelled to
Vancouver to try to work out why the virus found in patients is so
similar to the Sars coronavirus - yet the disease is so much milder.
One theory is that the virus has mutated slightly and lost some of its
virulence."
If this is true, then it's evolution in action. The more virulent
forms of disease kill their hosts too fast to spread very far. This
is why Ebola isn't a pandemic and why AIDS is. The most successful
diseases are the ones that manage to transmit their genome widely
before they kill-off or seriously disable the host. Perhaps SARS has
embarked on this path.
Maybe it's on its way to evolving into a member of that most
successful family of all - the endogenous retroviruses, which have
inserted themselves into our own genome and become part of us. Humans
have some 30,000 different examples of these in our DNA. That's
roughly 1% of our entire genome.
Creationists, of course, explain this by saying "Wha-?"
Budikka
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| User: "Dr. DuFonet" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
26 Aug 2003 09:52:03 AM |
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"Budikka" <budikka1@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:e1e30450.0308251941.42669e07@posting.google.com...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3169541.stm
reveals the discovery of what is apparently a milder from of SARS:
"An expert from the World Health Organization has travelled to
Vancouver to try to work out why the virus found in patients is so
similar to the Sars coronavirus - yet the disease is so much milder.
One theory is that the virus has mutated slightly and lost some of its
virulence."
If this is true, then it's evolution in action. The more virulent
forms of disease kill their hosts too fast to spread very far. This
is why Ebola isn't a pandemic and why AIDS is. The most successful
diseases are the ones that manage to transmit their genome widely
before they kill-off or seriously disable the host. Perhaps SARS has
embarked on this path.
Maybe it's on its way to evolving into a member of that most
successful family of all - the endogenous retroviruses, which have
inserted themselves into our own genome and become part of us. Humans
have some 30,000 different examples of these in our DNA. That's
roughly 1% of our entire genome.
Creationists, of course, explain this by saying "Wha-?"
Budikka
Sorry to bust your ballooon and reign on your parade, but a viral mutation
is not a form of evilution. Not even close.
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| User: "soCode" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
26 Aug 2003 10:27:24 AM |
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Dr. DuFonet wrote:
"Budikka" <budikka1@netscape.net> wrote in message
Creationists, of course, explain this by saying "Wha-?"
Sorry to bust your ballooon and reign on your parade, but a viral mutation
is not a form of evilution. Not even close.
I'm sorry to burst your balloon, and rain on your parade, but
viral mutation is a form of evolution, and "not even close" is
not even close to an argument.
Thank you, however, for giving an example of someone going
"Wha-?".
"...how such patterns of viral mutation may alter fitness..."
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/MaxEssex.html
http://www.college.ucla.edu/webproject/micro12/m12webnotes/viralevolution.htm
soCode
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| User: "Ike Milligan" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
26 Aug 2003 03:55:48 PM |
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"soCode" <news@socode.com> wrote in message
news:bifu8n$l9p$1@ngspool-d02.news.aol.com...
Dr. DuFonet wrote:
"Budikka" <budikka1@netscape.net> wrote in message
Creationists, of course, explain this by saying "Wha-?"
Sorry to bust your ballooon and reign on your parade, but a viral
mutation
is not a form of evilution. Not even close.
I'm sorry to burst your balloon, and rain on your parade, but
viral mutation is a form of evolution, and "not even close" is
not even close to an argument.
Thank you, however, for giving an example of someone going
"Wha-?".
Evolution should be defined as the creation of a new species. Viral
mutation is not a new species in this case. Viruses do not even reproduce
sexually, so they barely qualify for speciation, if at all. If you want to
define every mutation as an evolition, fine for you. Some fundamentalists
would probably declare that so-called races of humans were not the result of
mutation. Our semantic disagreement about what evolution is or isn't may be
beside the point.
"...how such patterns of viral mutation may alter fitness..."
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/MaxEssex.html
http://www.college.ucla.edu/webproject/micro12/m12webnotes/viralevolution.htm
soCode
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| User: "soCode" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
27 Aug 2003 02:56:14 AM |
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Ike Milligan wrote:
"soCode" <news@socode.com> wrote in message
news:bifu8n$l9p$1@ngspool-d02.news.aol.com...
Dr. DuFonet wrote:
"Budikka" <budikka1@netscape.net> wrote in message
Creationists, of course, explain this by saying "Wha-?"
Sorry to bust your ballooon and reign on your parade, but a viral
mutation
is not a form of evilution. Not even close.
I'm sorry to burst your balloon, and rain on your parade, but
viral mutation is a form of evolution, and "not even close" is
not even close to an argument.
Thank you, however, for giving an example of someone going
"Wha-?".
Evolution should be defined as the creation of a new species.
No, it shouldn't. A new species is never "created" in the way
you seem to think; "species" is merely a convenient label, like "language".
Similarly, everyone in England didn't decide one morning to stop
speaking "Old English" and start speaking "Middle English".
soCode
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
27 Aug 2003 08:37:59 PM |
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On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 08:56:14 +0100, soCode wrote:
Ike Milligan wrote:
"soCode" <news@socode.com> wrote in message
news:bifu8n$l9p$1@ngspool-d02.news.aol.com...
Dr. DuFonet wrote:
"Budikka" <budikka1@netscape.net> wrote in message
Creationists, of course, explain this by saying "Wha-?"
Sorry to bust your ballooon and reign on your parade, but a viral
mutation
is not a form of evilution. Not even close.
I'm sorry to burst your balloon, and rain on your parade, but viral
mutation is a form of evolution, and "not even close" is not even close
to an argument.
Thank you, however, for giving an example of someone going "Wha-?".
Evolution should be defined as the creation of a new species.
No, it shouldn't. A new species is never "created" in the way you seem to
think; "species" is merely a convenient label, like "language".
Similarly, everyone in England didn't decide one morning to stop speaking
"Old English" and start speaking "Middle English".
<chuckle>
Or like the great vowel shift. Everybody got together and said "why don't
we talk *this way?"
--
Mark K. Bilbo
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
26 Aug 2003 04:54:34 PM |
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On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 20:55:48 +0000, Ike Milligan wrote:
Evolution should be defined as the creation of a new species.
Why? The present definition works fine.
--
Mark K. Bilbo
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| User: "JTEM" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
27 Aug 2003 11:38:37 AM |
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"Dr. DuFonet" <accordiondoc@mindsproing.cop> wrote
Evolution would seem to require speciation.
"Micro evolution."
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
27 Aug 2003 06:54:15 PM |
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On Wed, 27 Aug 2003 13:23:24 +0000, Dr. DuFonet wrote:
Evolution would seem to require speciation.
Biggest problem with that is "species" is not easily defined. There aren't
nice, discreet barriers in the real world between one "species" and
another.
Argument could be made that "species" is a rather arbitrary thing imposed
by humans on nature. It's a useful thing but falls apart if you push too
hard on it.
Besides, evolution happens even if speciation doesn't. Speciation is
something that emerges because evolution happens...
--
Mark K. Bilbo
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| User: "Scott Rutter" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
26 Aug 2003 06:48:12 PM |
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On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 20:55:48 GMT, "Ike Milligan"
<accordiondoc@mindsproing.cop> wrote:
Thank you, however, for giving an example of someone going
"Wha-?".
Evolution should be defined as the creation of a new species.
Evolution already has a definition, and creation of a new species
isn't it.
-
To Reply: Take off every Zig!
EAC - Director of Quantum Computing
Ordained Minister - Universal Life Church
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| User: "Mark K. Bilbo" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
26 Aug 2003 04:54:05 PM |
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On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 14:52:03 +0000, Dr. DuFonet wrote:
"Budikka" <budikka1@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:e1e30450.0308251941.42669e07@posting.google.com...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3169541.stm reveals the discovery of
what is apparently a milder from of SARS: "An expert from the World
Health Organization has travelled to Vancouver to try to work out why
the virus found in patients is so similar to the Sars coronavirus - yet
the disease is so much milder. One theory is that the virus has mutated
slightly and lost some of its virulence."
If this is true, then it's evolution in action. The more virulent forms
of disease kill their hosts too fast to spread very far. This is why
Ebola isn't a pandemic and why AIDS is. The most successful diseases
are the ones that manage to transmit their genome widely before they
kill-off or seriously disable the host. Perhaps SARS has embarked on
this path.
Maybe it's on its way to evolving into a member of that most successful
family of all - the endogenous retroviruses, which have inserted
themselves into our own genome and become part of us. Humans have some
30,000 different examples of these in our DNA. That's roughly 1% of our
entire genome.
Creationists, of course, explain this by saying "Wha-?"
Budikka
Sorry to bust your ballooon and reign on your parade, but a viral mutation
is not a form of evilution. Not even close.
Translation: "wha-?"
--
Mark K. Bilbo
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| User: "johac" |
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| Title: Re: Evolution in Action? |
26 Aug 2003 12:43:02 AM |
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In article <e1e30450.0308251941.42669e07@posting.google.com>,
(Budikka) wrote:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/3169541.stm
reveals the discovery of what is apparently a milder from of SARS:
"An expert from the World Health Organization has travelled to
Vancouver to try to work out why the virus found in patients is so
similar to the Sars coronavirus - yet the disease is so much milder.
One theory is that the virus has mutated slightly and lost some of its
virulence."
If this is true, then it's evolution in action. The more virulent
forms of disease kill their hosts too fast to spread very far. This
is why Ebola isn't a pandemic and why AIDS is. The most successful
diseases are the ones that manage to transmit their genome widely
before they kill-off or seriously disable the host. Perhaps SARS has
embarked on this path.
Maybe it's on its way to evolving into a member of that most
successful family of all - the endogenous retroviruses, which have
inserted themselves into our own genome and become part of us. Humans
have some 30,000 different examples of these in our DNA. That's
roughly 1% of our entire genome.
Creationists, of course, explain this by saying "Wha-?"
Some of the real die-hards probably still believe that modern
diseases, like the biblical plagues of old, are sent to us by *GAWD*
because we are e-v-i-l.
Budikka
--
John Hachmann, aa #1782
Pierre Laplace, when asked by Napoleon on why he made
no mention of a god in his book on astronomy: "Sire,
I have no need of that hypothesis."
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