Loves Science ???

General Discussion
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Good score, thanks Lausten. Since I suspect that Loveofself won’t be interested in pursuing that link I think it’s worth bringing a few quotes into this discussion:

Critical thinking...the awakening of the intellect to the study of itself.

The Foundation for Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is a rich concept that has been developing throughout the past 2,500 years. The term “critical thinking” has its roots in the mid-late 20th century. Below, we offer overlapping definitions which together form a substantive and trans-disciplinary conception of critical thinking.

Critical Thinking as Defined by the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, 1987:

Critical thinking can be seen as having two components: 1) a set of information and belief generating and processing skills, and 2) the habit, based on intellectual commitment, of using those skills to guide behavior. It is thus to be contrasted with: 1) the mere acquisition and retention of information alone, because it involves a particular way in which information is sought and treated; 2) the mere possession of a set of skills, because it involves the continual use of them; and 3) the mere use of those skills (“as an exercise”) without acceptance of their results.

Critical thinking varies according to the motivation underlying it. When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one’s own, or one’s groups’, vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be. When grounded in fairmindedness and intellectual integrity, it is typically of a higher order intellectually, though subject to the charge of “idealism” by those habituated to its selfish use.

Critical thinking of any kind is never universal in any individual; everyone is subject to episodes of undisciplined or irrational thought. Its quality is therefore typically a matter of degree and dependent on, among other things, the quality and depth of experience in a given domain of thinking or with respect to a particular class of questions. No one is a critical thinker through-and-through, but only to such-and-such a degree, with such-and-such insights and blind spots, subject to such-and-such tendencies towards self-delusion. For this reason, the development of critical thinking skills and dispositions is a life-long endeavor. …


This seems key.

When grounded in selfish motives, it is often manifested in the skillful manipulation of ideas in service of one’s own, or one's groups’, vested interest. As such it is typically intellectually flawed, however pragmatically successful it might be.
I think that's a fancy way of saying, Unidirectional Skepticism equals Denial.

Full spectrum skepticism is required for developing sober understanding - as opposed to the self-satisfaction in hollow religious certitude.

 

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@mriana

And there’s the willful ignorance.
I hadn't really grasped that your assertion that babies can look like cats was being taken seriously. I've not seen that. Perhaps you can show me what you are talking about.

Though different kinds of animals do have elements of common composition and design, the brief stage of similar morphology is arrived at by very different routes. It seems then the commonality is due to an amazing coincidence or the demands of good design rather than a borrowed developmental pathway.

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by very different routes.
Please can you explain? Have any example to share?

Do you know anything about DNA tracking and things scientists have been able to learn from their ever more intricate understanding of it?

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@mriana

The first four or five books are the books of Moses or Torah and despite that being in the Bible, it is not in Classical/Biblical Hebrew and as I said before the KJV is the worst translation.
Yes, you've said that before. You seem very dogmatic about it. And very keen to defend rabbinical views. (Although I am not sure how many rabbi's would claim that the Torah was not part of the Hebrew bible, but rather that the only legitimate way of interpreting it is through the oral law, or talmud.)

But simply reiterating the point does not help me (or you). Nor does appeal to authority. Nor does telling me I am ignorant.

You hate the KJV, as do all the religious leaders. I get it. But aside from an appeal to a scholarly or religious priesthood, what is your argument exactly?

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But simply reiterating the point does not help me (or you). Nor does appeal to authority. Nor does telling me I am ignorant. -- LOG
My pastor just quoted this last Sunday:

first cast out the beam out of thine own eye;and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

Matthew 7, KJV

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But simply reiterating the point does not help me (or you). Nor does appeal to authority. Nor does telling me I am ignorant. -- LOG
My pastor just quoted this last Sunday:

first cast out the beam out of thine own eye;and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

Matthew 7, KJV

(Yes I know I doubled posted it.)

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@citizenschallengev3

Please can you explain? Have any example to share?
Most animal embryos go through a stage where they form a ball of cells called a blastula. But the development of the blastula is itself arrived at by very different mechanisms. See for example:

http://labs.bio.unc.edu/harris/Courses/biol104/jan13.htm

Do you know anything about DNA tracking and things scientists have been able to learn from their ever more intricate understanding of it?
I know that genetic rates of mutation have to be calculated completely differently to account for ape->human evolution as compared with current mutation rates.
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But the development of the blastula is itself arrived at by very different mechanisms. See for example: OUTLINE OF SECOND LECTURE: Jan 13, 2006, by Corey Johnson Compare embryology of sea urchin, frog, bird and mammal similarities and differences

Karl Ernst Von Baer: Vertebrates (and the sea urchin) undergo similar transition from zygote to blastula. …

Blastula - embryo composed of many Blastomeres and a hollow center …

Blastocoel - cavity of the blastula …

The blasotcoel is surrounded by multiple layers of cells, unlike the sea urchin …

Ions are pumped inward by the outer cells, causing osmosis to form a cavity - this embryo is now called a blastocyst (not a blastula)…


 

That doesn’t say what you claim. Besides it’s basically an outline for a talk, so what the hell are you talking about? Can you explain?

 

FYI:

https: //www - khanacademy - org/science/high-school-biology/hs-evolution/hs-evidence-of-evolution/a/hs-evidence-of-evolution-review

 

 

So you’ve heard that DNA changes over time. Is that as far as it goes?

Don’t suppose you imagine you have a lot more to learn about the topic?

 

 

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I know that genetic rates of mutation have to be calculated completely differently to account for ape->human evolution as compared with current mutation rates.
That's a statement that could so easily be backed up by data, if you had that data. It sounds like something an elementary teacher would say, if it was true. Instead, it's something you are saying that goes against 150 years of the science of evolution. Either, show us these "different" calculations, or do what we all suspect you will do, show us some YouTube from a creationist museum.
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That’s a statement that could so easily be backed up by data, if you had that data. It sounds like something an elementary teacher would say, if it was true. Instead, it’s something you are saying that goes against 150 years of the science of evolution. Either, show us these “different” calculations, or do what we all suspect you will do, show us some YouTube from a creationist museum.
There are a dozen references on the wikipedia article on the molecular clock:

Non-constant rate of molecular clock

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@citizenschallengev3

That doesn’t say what you claim. Besides it’s basically an outline for a talk, so what the hell are you talking about? Can you explain?
Well if you call lecture notes an outline for a talk...

The development in these different animals doesn’t follow the same pattern before the blastula stage. So the coincidence in form does not appear to a result of shared mechanism, but some other coincidence. Hence there is no implication of shared ancestry between eg. frog and ape that derives from the similar shape.

To put it another way: a frog and a mouse do not grow into a ball in the same way. The underlying mechanisms appear totally different.

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There are a dozen references - LOG
Sophisticated trolls are the worst. Instead of just picking out a word and claiming a different meaning, you need a page full of posts to arrive at some place that makes you appear to know what you meant. Here we are, looking at mutation rates, a part of the theory of evolution. We got here via a comment about morphology of embryos and some comments about genetic similarities before that. This all goes back to you claiming some sort of “code” that “someone” must have “written”.

How does evolution rate support your basic arguments?

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This reflects on another poster, who apparently believes diversity is a bad thing, but it’s a DNA story so I’ll park it here.

 

Fossil DNA Reveals New Twists in Modern Human Origins

https://www.quantamagazine.org/fossil-dna-reveals-new-twists-in-modern-human-origins-20190829/

By Jordana Cepelewicz - August 29, 2019

Now the DNA evidence seems to back up this revised migration narrative as well. In retrospect, “it seems quite natural,” Scally said, “to say that human populations and evolution were just as messy 200,000 years ago, and just as subdivided and structured … as they are today.”

“It makes it hard to argue that there was ever some … special evolutionary event or genetic event that triggered the evolution of humans as we know them,” he added. Humans have been continuously evolving through the mixing of varied populations for hundreds of thousands of years. (In fact, Scally posits that our species did not originally evolve from a single population in Africa, but rather from many interconnected populations spread out across the continent.)

“This is telling us, ‘Oh, this is not a weird one-off,’” Hawks said. “It’s a continuing interaction.”

What is curious is that the only migration that seems to have left modern human descendants in Europe and Asia was the one from 60,000 years ago. The groups that migrated earlier apparently all died out or got absorbed into Neanderthal or other ancient populations. “If there were earlier events,” Scally said, “they left essentially no ancestry or negligible ancestry in us today.”

This could mean, he said, that “this Neanderthal legacy could be the only descendants that those people had.” Furthermore, when the Neanderthals then interbred with modern humans during later migrations, perhaps some of that DNA got mixed back into the modern human genome, embedding older signals of Homo sapiens history into the genetic material of individuals alive today. …


Totally fascinating story that gets more interesting with every new publication.

God is a creation of our minds, but we are a creation of Evolution going back billions of years.

The idea of God as presented in the Bible is totally egocentric and human-petty, and demands one turn a blind eye to God’s Physical Creation. That’s the part I find so crazy-making.

How can your god be true, if you must ignore and reject and lie about so much of “god’s” living reality?

The only way I could reconcile that is to finally recognize the fundamental difference between Physical Reality and our Mindscapes and then after chewing on that a while, I came to the realization that what you folks have actually done is hyper-inflate your own Egos to where they block out whatever true god is lurking out there. You have made your Ego God, nothing more.

The ironic part is that even the Bible tries to warn people that God is beyond all human understanding - shadow plays built around our individual experiences and perceptions is the best we can hope for. I believe the lesson is, it’s not so bad believing in a god, just don’t take yourself too seriously.

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So you’ve heard that DNA changes over time. Is that as far as it goes?
Well I've heard people say that man has 12+12=24 chromosomes.

But according to my biblical numerology ADAM=A+D+A+M=1+4+1+40=46. I’m pretty sure the answer is 23+23=46.

Don’t suppose you imagine you have a lot more to learn about the topic?
I'm all ears.
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It doesn’t work that way. It’s up you and good-faith honest curiosity and desire to learn and to do homework.

You know what they say about leading a horse to water . . .

Oh and what’s with the numerology? There are numerologists who do it differently 1+4+1+40=46 which would add up to 10 which adds up to 1. Which is the loneliest number. Meaning your answer should be 5+5=10, which brings us back to 1. Although others will argue that 2 is the loneliest number since the number 1. What’s the point, or the lesson?" I ask because you leave us about as informed আদম.

 

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loveofgod said; Well I’ve heard people say that man has 12+12=24 chromosomes.

But according to my biblical numerology ADAM=A+D+A+M=1+4+1+40=46. I’m pretty sure the answer is 23+23=46.


Don’t suppose you imagine you have a lot more to learn about the topic?

I’m all ears.
Wonderful, let me show you convincing evidence that Humans have the same ancestor as other Great Apes.

Human Chromosome 2 is a fusion of two ancestral chromosomes

Introduction

All great apes apart from man have 24 pairs of chromosomes. There is therefore a hypothesis that the common ancestor of all great apes had 24 pairs of chromosomes and that the fusion of two of the ancestor’s chromosomes created chromosome 2 in humans. The evidence for this hypothesis is very strong.


Let us re-iterate what we find on human chromosome 2. Its centromere is at the same place as the chimpanzee chromosome 2p as determined by sequence similarity. Even more telling is the fact that on the 2q arm of the human chromosome 2 is the unmistakable remains of the original chromosome centromere of the common ancestor of human and chimp 2q chromosome, at the same position as the chimp 2q centromere (this structure in humans no longer acts as a centromere for chromosome 2.

Conclusion

The evidence that human chromosome 2 is a fusion of two of the common ancestor’s chromosomes is overwhelming.


My personal assumption is that the mutative fusion of human chromosome 2 (twice as big) also is responsible for our larger brains and resulting evolving sophistication in survival skills, such as tool making and use allowing us to adopt nomadic lifestyles in addition to domestication of the land.

 
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@citizenschallengev3

That’s the kind of numerology taught in the New Age. You mostly end up reducing everything to one of nine equivalence classes. Every word is then linked to 10% of other words. This throws away too much information.

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No Magic!!! Just Evolution.

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Six of one half a dozen of the other. Why not spend a little time with W4U, he’s way nicer than I am, and I dare say knows the fine details quite a bit better. Ask him some serious questions and he’ll offer serious lessons you can do something.

 

If you want to learn that is.

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That’s the kind of numerology taught in the New Age. -- LOG
Oh darn. He's got you there.