Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Decipher 3-Billion-Year-Old Genomic Fossils
hnkstrprnkstr writes "MIT scientists have created a sort of genomic fossil (abstract) that shows the collective genome of all life underwent an enormous expansion about 3 billion years ago, which they're calling the Archean Expansion. Many of the new genes appearing in the Archean Expansion are oxygen related, and could be the first biological evidence of the Great Oxidation Event, the period in Earth's history when oxygen became so plentiful that many anaerobic life forms may have become extinct."
I can breathe!
... now back to the bit mines.
Go here. Follow, read, and understand the links on the first, say, three or four pages of search results. Then, maybe, you'll know enough to have a meaningful opinion on the subject.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I'm confused. So they were on the Ark or what?
40% of US residents believe in creationism. What are you going to say to them, huh?
As little as possible.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
This is what happens when you don't free() your genes after you're done with them.
Simple. "God works in subtle, mysterious ways. Who is to say that He did not create the universe in such a way that the precise results He wished to occur would occur, like an intricate, universe-wide set of dominoes? Could not evolution be the means by which He created man?"
If they continue to argue, hit them with a crowbar.
The overwhelming majority of human progress has come from people who were or are highly religious.
Or claimed to be in order to escape the current Inquisition.
Have gnu, will travel.
On the other hand, many murderers, mass murderers even, are/were "highly religious" and of course, in the middle of those two extremes, there are many many many many many many many other people who have made no impact on society whatsoever, doomed to be excluded from the annals of history by their mediocrity who are (or were) "highly religious". You can't just hold up an example of a great scientist who was also religious and say:
"Look! That proves it!!! Human progress is impossible without Religion!!"
I think if you replaced Newton's headstone with a magnet and wrapped his coffin in wire, you'd produce a measurable current every time you did say that.
The "overwhelming majority of human progress" is in the past, due to the fact that the present is still happening and we can't see into the future. Society is becoming more secular. Many countries still have blasphemy laws. Some countries will stone you to death if you criticise a man who's supposedly an emissary of a prophet of a god. How many people were hanged/stoned/shot to death because of their godlessness who might have come up with calculus, or the "law of gravity" or the bagless vacuum cleaner or any one of a number of Really Great Things? How many were excluded from schools/universities because of accidents of birth, or because of their religious beliefs (which is pretty much the same thing).
How many scientists paid lip service to God and religion because it was an established social convention. How many scientists paid lip service to God because the church was giving them money? If you were studying at one of the earliest 12th-14th century(I think) church-run universities would you come out with a heretical theory that suggested that God might not exist? No. No you wouldn't.
Nice logic! Got another one for ya: The overwhelming majority of murders and rapes were committed by people who were or are highly religious. Guess that proves that theists are inherently immoral, eh?
Wow, the first result is very interesting, and mostly understandable, because the ideas read much like similar programming concepts. And it even contains a car analogy!
The character ’existence of engine’ is compatible with the tree of Figure 2.1 (a) as the
motor is invented once in the edge connecting the root and the common ancestor of car and
motorcycle. The same character is not compatible with the tree in Figure 2.1 (b) where the
engine is invented twice. The character ’number of wheels’ is compatible with both trees.
Shut down the coal mines. Yes, coal, gas and oil have to go - basically carbon from underground that people burn. Limited resources, causing dispute, war, monopolies, smoke, soot, noise. Nuclear and hydroelectric works just fine, most of NYC trasportation runs on electric power. Millions of people get to work and back every day, fast with no traffic - on electric power. Get PRT and it'll be faster than any car-based system can ever be.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/