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Darwinism gives no proof for evolution.

Um, what does this even mean? I can't parse this sentence in a way that becomes coherent. You seem to a) think that "Darwinism" is a meaningful term and that b) it is distinct from "evolution." This leaves me slightly confused. Although given the later material in your post it does provide a nice example to support the contention of many posters here that "Darwinism" as a term is used primarily by creationists. Incidentally, science doesn't care at all about "proof." Nothing in science is every proven. Proof is for alcohol and mathematicians. The rest of your post seems to be a mix of a word salad and a Gish gallop (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duane_Gish ). Nevertheless, I'll try to take a look at it.

I compel you to name one mutation that has been observed to add information to a species. Just one!

First, I don't think you mean "compel" but rather "challenge" or "request." Second, I think don't mean "information to a species" but rather information to a specific genome. See the difference? Next, we come to the issue of information. Unfortunately, it turns out that information is very hard to precisely define. There are two definitions which are most common among mathematicians. These are Shannon information and Kolmogorov complexity. Under both of these measures, increasing chromosome count or simple gene duplication will often increase the amount of information contained in the genome. Gene duplication is quite common and has been frequently observed in many different species. Now, you may have an intuition for what you mean by information that doesn't include gene duplication. Now, this may be an example where your intuition simply doesn't meet the relevant math. That's ok because we have many examples that are unambiguous increases information. One example is given at http://mbe.oupjournals.org/cgi/reprint/15/8/931.pdf where after a series of genes duplicated they then further mutated. Now, you might say that this doesn't count because you really didn't want information added. You really meant examples of beneficial mutations. Well we're in luck because we have lots of those also. For example, we have bacteria which have evolved to be able to eat nylon. And that's one of many examples.

Let alone the hundreds of thousands of mutations that would be necessary to go from molecules of sludge to Human.

You seem to be confusing a few different issues here. But in brief, science doesn't work this way. For that matter, neither does every day reasoning. Consider the following analogy:You come to my house as a guest for dinner and I put out a cooked chicken. You ask me where the chicken came from, I tell you that I bought it at the local store. You ask further and I look at the label and see that it came from a neighboring state before that. You don't then ask for a detailed list of how the chicken got from the other state to here. The fact that I don't have a video of the chicken being brought from that state to here is not a reason to reject this narrative. We do the best we can and we try as hard as we can. But not having a complete list of every single mutation is not an argument against evolution.

Natural selection and mutations only work within a species.

Wait, what? I thought there were no mutations adding information. Please make up your mind. Do mutations not work at all or not work within species? And what do you mean by "work" anyhow?

Darwin himself never talks about the origin of species in his book... only about natural selection and survival of the fittest.

Ok, this is simply false. Go read Origin of Species. It has that title for a reason. Seriously, go read the book. Second, even if he had never talked about speciation it would be irrelevant to whether or not it happens. Biology is not a religion which worships

the idea that people with damage in the prefrontal cortex have difficulties dealing with "hidden meaning" in words is hardly a new one.

damage to the prefrontal lobe can even cause sociopathy, to give an extreme example.

Sigh... Sorry that the link I provided did not answer every possible aspect of my comment.

Since you are incapible of doing your own google search before making ill-informed statements; I'll do it for you:

http://autism.about.com/od/autisminprint/i/brainpr ocessing_2.htm

http://brain.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/ 125/7/1594

http://128.226.8.112/icdext/info/aspergers.html

http://www.websitetoolbox.com/tool/post/bgrh/vpost ?id=157312

http://www.autistics.cc/AspSleepNeuroStudy.html

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/uow -sec030405.php

I trust Slashdot, but I trust scientific journals more.

The Center for Disease Control, a US Government agency, is watching the issue.

Here is some info from a study on mice. It's bibliography should be of some help if you care to research this further.

If that isn't enough, here's another paper.

The saying "the jury is still out" applies, but there's more than enough evidence to say "no" to blindly racing ahead with this technology without stopping to think about the possible consequences to human health, which was the whole point of my post that you replied to.

Ironicly the aim of this study is weed out science from pseudo science and explore the limits human knowledge. Philosophy is exactly what this debate needs more of, not less of.

http://ijpor.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/ 14/2/141

Among various other studies. Basically, liberal leanings represent a more comprehensive, considered, thoughtful view of the world.

Hrmm, I had to google to find out that 16S genes reside in the mitochrondria. One thing that was interesting is that apparently part of these genes may come from the nucleus (at least in some multicell organisms like humans). So it may be possible to seperate mitochrondial DNA into internal and external parts?

I could rant on but, I think this project is of some use only if combined with traditional taxonomy. The danger is that a large flashy project like this will steal research dollars away from traditional taxonomy.

I favor small projects over large, flashy ones, but I don't see the danger you mention partly because the database would be embarrassingly useless without taxonomy data. Ie, if there's a "bar code" and the label "fruit fly" (deliberately crude label), that doesn't mean much. They need to describe the morphology and other characteristics of the specific organisms that they sample (ie, provide some built-in validation that they sampled a fruit fly of the correct species). What's interesting here is that this project may be a way to increase the share of the pie that taxonomy gets and hence, increase funding to traditional taxonomy projects as well. The key is to find ways to link your work to the big money project.

http://toxsci.oupjournals.org/cgi/content/full/77/ 1/126
http://nanopedia.cwru.edu/NanoPage.php?page=lung.t oxicity
http://www.ece.neu.edu/edsnu/mcgruer/nano/nanotoxi cityscience0304.pdf

Which would be safer? A Carbon Nanotube vest, or an asbestos sweater? ;-)

Teenage pregnancies have become a public health issue because of their observed negative effects on perinatal outcomes and long-term morbidity. The association of young maternal age and long-term morbidity is usually confounded, however, by the high prevalence of poverty, low level of education, and single marital status among teenage mothers. The authors assess the independent effect of teenage pregnancy on educational disabilities and educational problems in a total population of children who entered kindergarten in Florida in 1992-1994 and investigate how controlling for potentially confounding factors affects the relation between teenage pregnancies and poor outcome. When no other factors are taken into account, children of teenage mothers have significantly higher odds of placement in certain special education classes and significantly higher occurrence of milder education problems, but when maternal education, marital status, poverty level, and race are controlled, the detrimental effects disappear and even some protective effects are observed. Hence, the increased risk for educational problems and disabilities among children of teenage mothers is attributed not to the effect of young age but to the confounding influences of associated sociodemographic factors. In contrast to teen age, older maternal age has an adverse effect on a child's educational outcome regardless of whether other factors are controlled for or not.

Actually, a study or three demonstrating a statistically significant link between nonionizing radiation and cancer is exactly what I would expect, even in the absence of real harmful effects.

This is epidemiology--hardcore statistics. When determining the risk associated with some factor, you can never be entirely certain that the effects you see are 'real', and not just due to random clustering. Toss a coin ten times--you'd expect to get heads five or so times, but occasionally (1 time in about a thousand) you'll see ten heads in a row.

By making (generally reasonable) assumptions about the nature of the randomness in the data, scientists and epidemiologists tend to come up with one or more measures of how likely an apparent result is to be genuinely significant. Generally, a result is taken to be 'real' if there is less than a 5% chance that the result is the result of noise (a P value of less than 0.05). Alternately, a study may state an odds ratio and 95% confidence interval ("If you take drug foostatin you are 1.7 times more likely to have symptom bar (95% CI 1.4 to 1.95)") denoting that the relative risk is 95% likely to fall in the stated interval.

Under those circumstances, if the scientists do everything correctly, and account for every possible confounding factor, and do all their math correctly...that still leaves as many as one study in every twenty potentially reaching the incorrect conclusion.

The journal in question here--The International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health--isn't exactly a top-flight journal, either. I'm not at work at the moment so I can't check their archives, but their impact factor is fairly low. (Down to 0.924 in 2002, declining steadily since 1997.) Yes, impact factor is by no means the only criterion by which a journal should be judged--but Nature they are not. Unfortunately, the Wired article refers to an 'upcoming' paper, so I can't get at the publication cited.

Looking at the other paper mentioned in the Wired article demonstrates that Wired can't be trusted to accurately report the findings of scientific papers, either. Wired says:

Two years ago an Italian study found death rates from leukemia increased dramatically for residents living within two miles of Vatican Radio's powerful array of transmitters in Rome.

The abstract of the original paper in the American Journal of Epidemiology says: (in part, emphasis added)

...In the 10-km area around the station, with 49,656 residents (in 1991), leukemia mortality among adults (aged >14 years; 40 cases) in 1987-1998 and childhood leukemia incidence (

eight cases) in 1987-1999 were evaluated. The risk of childhood leukemia was higher than expected for the distance up to 6 km from the radio station (standardized incidence rate = 2.2, 95% confidence interval: 1.0, 4.1), and there was a significant decline in risk with increasing distance both for male mortality (p = 0.03) and for childhood leukemia (p = 0.036). The study has limitations because of the small number of cases and the lack of exposure data. Although the study adds evidence of an excess of leukemia in a population living near high-power radio transmitters, no causal implication can be drawn. There is still insufficient scientific knowledge, and new epidemiologic studies are needed to c

Found this link on world wide brain cancer stats. And another one, here , on causes - though like any scientific stuff this is subject to change.

Fact is, I haven't seen a single test with animals or smaller organisms exposed to nano-tech.

hellooooooooo?

(courtesy of morcheeba)

I'm looking forward to only needing one memory card to store all the 5Mbit pictures that I'll take for the rest of my life.

It seems that a 1GB nano-tube based memory card should last the rest of your life. Of course, a silicon-based memory card to last the rest of your life would have to be much larger.

Selective quoting from some papers:

-In a recent study, we have seen that neonatal exposure to some brominated flame retardants can cause permanent aberrations in spontaneous motor behavior that seem to worsen with age.[..]Thus, the behavioral disturbances observed in adult mice following neonatal exposure to 2,2`,4,4`,5-pentaBDE are induced during a defined critical period of neonatal brain development.

-These results indicate that brominated flame retardants, especially the brominated phenols and tetrabromobisphenol A, are very potent competitors for T4 binding to human transthyretin in vitro and may have effects on thyroid hormone homeostasis in vivo comparable to the thyroid-disrupting effects of PCBs.

-The objective of the current study was to characterize the effects of DE-71 (a commercial polybrominated diphenyl ether mixture containing mostly tetra- and penta-bromodiphenyl ethers) on thyroid hormones and hepatic enzyme activity in offspring, following perinatal maternal exposure[..]
There was no significant effect of DE 71 on T3 concentrations at any time in the dams or the offspring. Increased liver to body weight ratios in offspring were consistent with induction of EROD (maximal 95-fold), PROD (maximal 26-fold) or UDPGT (maximal 4.7-fold). Induction of PROD was similar in both dams and offspring; however, EROD and UDPGT induction were much greater in offspring compared to dams (EROD = 3.8-fold; UDPGT = 0.5-fold). These data support the conclusion that DE-71 is an endocrine disrupter in rats during development.

Allthough most, if not all, of this research includes rats, I would still think that you can assume that most of the negative effect would affect humas too. IIRC from my bio class humans and rats share most of the DNA and neurons reacts in the same ways.

It's become almost trite to assume that many people in computing -- especially programmers -- are on the autistic spectrum. Usually this means Asperger's rather than "classic" Kanner autism, but in truth, it's not yet clear what bright-line (if any) separates the two conditions, and many studies have lumped Asperger and Kanner autistics together.

The lay distinction is that Asperger's is high-functioning autism, or autism without mental retardation, and in some cases of Asperger's even higher than average intelligence; but while there are more high-functioning individuals with Asperger's than Kanner's, high-functioning and low-functioning individuals with both syndromes exist. A diagnosis of Asperger's, unlike Kanner's does not include late speech or speech followed by a loss of speech, but both forms involve speech abnormalities of one sort or another, and both involve significant social impairment, related to an inability to "read" others' body language or (more so in Kanner's) an inability to conceive that others' perceptions differ from the autistic person's.

In nuerotypical (i.e., normal) brains, the part of the brain called the fusiform gyrus is activated to "read" another person's emotional state from the other's facial expression. In autistic persons (either Kanner or Asperger), the fusiform gyrus is not activated, with some studies showing autistic used parts of the brain used for object processing and others that each autistic individual uses a different brain areas to process facial emotional cues. High-functioning autistics generally explain that they process faces consciously, apparently as part of general problem solving.

Autistics are often seem as having less empathy or "flatter" emotions, although Temple Grandin, a high-functioning Kanner type autistic, reports that autistic have different emotions with the predominant emotion being a pervasive sense of fear. It is unclear whether this fear is the cause, effect, or just a
correlate of, the social impairments of autistic.

Autistics genenerally have special areas of interest which they obsess over, and this is in fact one required criteria for diagnosis.

Autism has only been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , the handbook of (American) psychiatry, since 1994, and so was apparently often mis-diagnosed (as depression, schizophrenia, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder) until recently; in many cases, the diagnosis of a child has led to a retroactive diagnoses (usual of Asperger's, as it's more "subtle") of one or both parents. Autism is one of the most strongly inherited neurological syndromes.

For more and more balanced information (I happened tonight to be browsing the journal articles that I cited, thus my emphasis on them) see (as usual) Wikipedia's article on autism.

To the submitter: do you know what form of autism you have?

It's become almost trite to assume that many people in computing -- especially programmers -- are on the autistic spectrum. Usually this means Asperger's rather than "classic" Kanner autism, but in truth, it's not yet clear what bright-line (if any) separates the two conditions, and many studies have lumped Asperger and Kanner autistics together.

The lay distinction is that Asperger's is high-functioning autism, or autism without mental retardation, and in some cases of Asperger's even higher than average intelligence; but while there are more high-functioning individuals with Asperger's than Kanner's, high-functioning and low-functioning individuals with both syndromes exist. A diagnosis of Asperger's, unlike Kanner's does not include late speech or speech followed by a loss of speech, but both forms involve speech abnormalities of one sort or another, and both involve significant social impairment, related to an inability to "read" others' body language or (more so in Kanner's) an inability to conceive that others' perceptions differ from the autistic person's.

In nuerotypical (i.e., normal) brains, the part of the brain called the fusiform gyrus is activated to "read" another person's emotional state from the other's facial expression. In autistic persons (either Kanner or Asperger), the fusiform gyrus is not activated, with some studies showing autistic used parts of the brain used for object processing and others that each autistic individual uses a different brain areas to process facial emotional cues. High-functioning autistics generally explain that they process faces consciously, apparently as part of general problem solving.

Autistics are often seem as having less empathy or "flatter" emotions, although Temple Grandin, a high-functioning Kanner type autistic, reports that autistic have different emotions with the predominant emotion being a pervasive sense of fear. It is unclear whether this fear is the cause, effect, or just a
correlate of, the social impairments of autistic.

Autistics genenerally have special areas of interest which they obsess over, and this is in fact one required criteria for diagnosis.

Autism has only been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , the handbook of (American) psychiatry, since 1994, and so was apparently often mis-diagnosed (as depression, schizophrenia, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder) until recently; in many cases, the diagnosis of a child has led to a retroactive diagnoses (usual of Asperger's, as it's more "subtle") of one or both parents. Autism is one of the most strongly inherited neurological syndromes.

For more and more balanced information (I happened tonight to be browsing the journal articles that I cited, thus my emphasis on them) see (as usual) Wikipedia's article on autism.

To the submitter: do you know what form of autism you have?

Unfortunately nanotubes appear to be much more toxic than graphite (at least particular kinds of nanotubes, and for inhalation), leading to lung damage of types unexpected by the scientists doing the research.

I recently read a popular summary somewhere but of course don't remember exactly where. There's a fairly technical (but not unreadable) summary at from Toxicological Sciences available online. (I think that's a freely available article.)

It appears you didn't read the follow up in the same journal which specifically comments on people trying to draw the same conclusions you are from their article..

You would see a few interesting quotes:

"Under even the most liberal assumptions, gay and bisexual men in this urban centre were experiencing a life expectancy similar to that experienced by men in Canada in the year 1871. In contrast, if we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved. Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically in this population since 1996. As we have previously reported there has been a threefold decrease in mortality in Vancouver as well as in other parts of British Columbia."

and conveniently enough considering your previous arguments, this:

"Death is a product of the way a person lives and what physical and environmental hazards he or she faces everyday. It cannot be attributed solely to their sexual orientation or any other ethnic or social factor. If estimates of an individual gay and bisexual man's risk of death is truly needed for legal or other purposes, then people making these estimates should use the same actuarial tables that are used for all other males in that population. Gay and bisexual men are included in the construction of official population-based tables and therefore these tables for all males are the appropriate ones to be used."

You had no real reason to post that argument except to imply that homosexual couplings would cost more to insurance companies or just be more "destabalizing." So far, you have yet to show any evidence to support either of those claims. Most of what you have said has been personal opinion so far.

How about this?

Here's a quote CONCLUSION: In a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 20 years less than for all men. If the same pattern of mortality were to continue, we estimate that nearly half of gay and bisexual men currently aged 20 years will not reach their 65th birthday.

I concede that this study only focuses on men from one geographic region.

In fact, in some areas it may be worse, this documentary shows this.

LK

People have replied to most things you said, I'll just add a note. You seem to talk about only half of the evolution theory. It states there is variability and then selection of the fittest organisms. That's why you don't need the 4^4000 combinations to get a useful molecule with 4000 bases. The molecule is sequentially improved, not by design and not at random, but by natural selection.

Incidentally, 4000 nucleotides is rather excessive for a useful DNA chain. There are useful chains that are less than 100 nucleotides long (reference here) and even a single aminoacid can work as an enzyme (reference here, even if I'm not sure The Hindu is a credible resource for this...). Naturally, one would think that the first forms of life had very small RNA/DNA molecules, that started replicating and got selected based on their ability to do so.

Yeah, it is mainly from the benzo(a)pyrine in the tar. Though there is evidence for nicotine itself being carcinogenic - this abstract was all I could find with a quick search. Anyway, the cardiovascular effects would be more dangerous.

Gun Deaths != crime.
Allow me to explain.
According to the United States FBI and Do Health & Human services, in 1995, there where 13,790 firearm homicides in the US (about 5.51 per 100K). The same year, there where 18,503 gun suicides in the US, or 7.4 per 100K. Why guns? Because they're a very effective way to kill oneself. People who are intent on killing themselves will do so with the quickest means possible.

Don't believe me? Ask your beloved Japan, who had a suicide rate of 16.72 in 1994 International Journal of Epidemiology (1998)
Now, our total homicides (a category much clearer than the deceptive gun deaths) of 5.70 is still about 4 times higher than England's 1.41, but not 34 times higher, as your numbers might suggest to the uncritical reader.

So you feel safe in Europe, huh? How about london? Where you're twice as likely to get mugged, robbed, or assaulted then in New York City?
Quoting the Weekly Standard :
The same pattern can be seen throughout Europe--indeed, in much of the developed world. Crime has recently hit record highs in Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Toronto, and a host of other major cities. In a 2001 study, the British Home Office (the equivalent of the U.S. Department of Justice) found violent and property crime increased in the late 1990s in every wealthy country except the United States. American property crime rates have been lower than those in Britain, Canada, and France since the early 1990s, and violent crime rates throughout the E.U., Australia, and Canada have recently begun to equal and even surpass those in the United States. Even Sweden, once the epitome of cosmopolitan socialist prosperity, now has a crime victimization rate 20 percent higher than the United States.

Americans, on the other hand, have become much safer. Preliminary 2001 crime statistics from the FBI show America's tenth consecutive year of declines in crime. While our homicide rate is still substantially higher than most in Europe, it has sunk to levels unseen here since the early 1960s. And overall crime rates in this country are now 40 percent below the all-time highs of the early 1970s. In 1973, nearly 60 percent of American households fell victim to property crimes. In 2000 (the most recent data available), only about 20 percent did. Among the economically powerful democracies in the Group of Seven, only the Japanese now have a lower victimization rate than the United States.

Great Britains own Home Office, with a vested interest in preserving the status quo, shows that the US, with it's lax gun control laws, has less crime. And that using categories like 'property crime' and 'violent crime,' which clearly indicate that it's one person commiting a crime against another, contrary to your "Gun Deaths."

Also, none of this has mentioned how often guns are brandished or used to prevent crimes. (A legitimate gun death- where someone acted in self defense- would not be listed as homicide)Defensive gun uses have been estimated anywhere as low as 4.32 (National Crime Victimization survey) per 100K to as high as 103 (Dr. Kleck, Florida State University). If the truth lies in between, as is likely, the presence of guns offers a net benefit to society. Defensive Gun Uses include instances where simply brandishing the fire arm was enough to deter the criminal, and other instances where the criminal was shot)

Now, the article I cite goes on to list other reasons why the US crime rate has fallen, outside of firearm possesion. All things being equal though, I would much rather have the option to defend myself, my family, and my friends with the most effective means available- a firearm. Your gun control clearly doesn't make you any safer.

Also, if you think only cops should have guns- in the US, Police shoot the wrong person 11% of the time. Private citizens do so only 2% of the time.

I think I'll keep the loose United States gun laws, thank you, and you Europeans can laugh until the armed thug knocks on your door. Natural rights exist regardless of how bizzare you think they are, and you're better off exercising them then not.

Set. Bump. Spike. Thank you, come again.

Have you tried BioInformatics magazine? If so, why didn't you tell us?

If you didn't find this, which means you didn't try google, then why are you asking Slashdot?

Where do you get these wonderful statistics about the average lifespan of homosexuals? I'd like to see even one reference to this, regardless of how dodgy the source might be.

How about the Oxford's International Journal of Epidemiology or The CDC? If do do this Google search, you will find many articles about where the the average life expectancy of a non-HIV infected homosexual is about 42 years. =P

While it is true that women may get the disease easier, at least in Canada, the ratio of males to women who have the disease is 13:1 but that's not the case in Africa. Yet another good reason for women to be chaste and not abuse themselves with IV drugs.

There are also some nice graphs at Aids Central for those who don't want to read.