Theories by definition, cannot be tested and fail. Something that is tested and is found valid or failed is called a hypothesis. You're right in that evolution is not an unquestionable fact, that is true, but it is the least questionable. The problem is that people think that there is reason to believe that the theory of evolution is "wrong." True, there is always room for improvement, but so far the theory of evolution has proven to be one of the most reliable and robust theories in science. Even the theory of gravity is incomplete and has many holes, and in many ways is less solid than evolution. Either way it far surpasses the creationism bull, and I really wish people would understand that things are figured out by testing and learning, not by reading the bible and blindly listening to anything. And the truth doesn't give pro-creationists ammo. The simple fact that they have no ammo is what they base it on. It's like, "hey there's absolutely no evidence for this, so therefore it must be devinely true." It all boils down to the philosophical argument that NOTHING CAN BE PROVEN. Science relies entirely on this fact (the only "real fact" [wow that twists the mind]). However, lots of things CAN be disproved, but things that are not based in reality cannot be disproved, like creationism. The simple fact that they base it on nothing that has ever been observed makes them able to say that it cannot be disproved, which is unfortunate because it is absolutely insane. It's like me saying I and only I see purple bunnies all the time, and since you can't see them, you can't prove they're not there. We have words to call these people like schizophrenic. I don't think the masses of religious people are in fact schizophrenic intrinsically, but from the outside the difference cannot be seen. Sometimes these people also make the unfortunate mistake of harming others because they "believe" in something that isn't true ("delusions"). Catholicism is a great example of that. I might also say fundamentalist Islam is another example, but I cannot quite see through the war propaganda enough to stand behind that claim. How many scientific organizations have systematically killed or raped? Maybe they haven't been around long enough, but I just don't think science is driven to harm the way religion is. OK that's enough, sorry I really love this debait.
I think part of the problem is the negative connotation that anti-evolution people give to the word 'theory.' The truth is, 'facts' don't exist (in sciece anyway [and that's all that really matters]). One can make 'observations' and from those, develop theories. I don't see anyone trying to claim that gravity doesn't exist, yet it also is "only" a theory. The difference between gravity and evolution that makes it hard for people to accept one while they plainly expect the other, is that gravity happens in a time scale that is easily perceived within a human lifetime and evolution usually takes a much longer span of time to be noticed. The exceptions include rapidly reproducing organisms such as prokaryotes and viruses in which the mutation rate is fast enough to make the observation that the mutations are subject to selective pressures. Unfortunately, not everyone is privey to experiencing that observation, and so doubt lingers, unlike gravity, where everyone knows it exists. I'm not saying that the theory of evolution will never be disproven, or the theory of gravity for that matter (yet to be detected graviton particles???), but the slide in it's acceptance is more related to timescale of observations rather than from it being unsound or wrong. Getting back to the article, I am glad to see other people have asked the question about lateral gene transfere. I am curious about that myself. It would seem like all the genes they are using to do the phylogenetic analysis could possibly have originated from a different species. For large, multicellular creatures it's more obvious. There are only a limited number of ways for new genes to be added (viruses, etc.), but for single celled organisms, like algae, it's conceivable that there are many very simple vectors for lateral gene transfere. Such simpler systems involving fewer cells could simply eat up genetic material and incorporate it into their genomes, so I wonder if these things are taken into account. In all honesty, I think they probably are. Sequence conservation, biological history, and geological history, and lots of other tools seem like they would make it possible. But I mean come on! Opisthokonts? OPISTHOKONTS??? "Animals" just had such a nice ring to it;)
"How much do we know about virii to safely declare legally".. Might be better to ask a lawyer about the legality, but as far as what we know about viruses, lets just say you probably wouldn't be alive without the vaccinations millions of children receive before they can talk. As for the virus leaping from monkeys to humans, I think you are misunderstanding what is really happening here. It is not that the virus exists in monkeys. It is a human virus (monkeys may be able to carry it, but that's not really our concern in this case; it has already presented in the human population). Monkeys are merely the source of a cellular tool to proliferate a crippled form of the virus. There are no acual whole live monkeys, but monkey kidney cells that are grown in cell culture. These are specially modified cells which do not occur naturally. They might as well have been dingo cells, although that would present a few more technical challeges. Ebola isn't going anywhere. Even if it can be changed to work with it in a BL3 instead of a BL4, it's still being contained in a highly controlled and monitored environment. Actually, Bush hates funding for genetic engineering because he is a moron, doesn't know better, and can't spare any extra cash from his oil enterprises (AKA killing Iraqis). How about we just stop funding for education and healthcare all together? It's just unholy right? Tell you what, how about the next time you are diagnosed with cancer or HIV or Ebola, how about you just ask God to take care of you, since you think scientists who come up with the medical technologies are so irrational. Obviously you would have better chances of surviving right? (I'm being sarcastic) Yee Haw!
an untuned radio is one that is tuned to a frequency specificly broadcasting nothing specific. sure it is tuned, but there is only background signal. A foot is still huge when you're talking about any kind of electric effects or microwave effects. How big is a water molecule? If a foot wavelength can affect you, you would feel the vibration, not loose sleep. I just think the people who made up this study are really stretching it. Especially for this type of research, they really need that "double-blind" adjective in there.
First of all, this is NOT a double-blind, placebo controlled study. Sure they used a placebo, but if it was double-blind they sure as heck would have mentioned it in the abstract. That means that the results are based more on the opinions of the people carrying out the study, since they would have known weather or not the subjects were receiving treatment or placebo.
Second, unless you are equipped with sensitive antanai and receiving curcuitry, your body is quite incabaple of being affected by light with a wavelength bigger than a volkswagen beetle. (devide the speed of light by the frequency to see how large these waves really are) There is a reason radio telescopes are frikin huge.
As for a microwave effect... wrong frequency, buddy.
no... just.. no.
also, It's not as exposing you to radio frequency is actually "adding" anything to your environment. We are being constantly struck by radio waves of every frequency, that is why an untuned radio plays static. The only difference in adding a transmittion is that the waves are made into something recognizable and put closer and brighter, but there are times when natural background radiation is even brighter than your cell phone's (aka bad reception).
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Theories by definition, cannot be tested and fail. Something that is tested and is found valid or failed is called a hypothesis. You're right in that evolution is not an unquestionable fact, that is true, but it is the least questionable. The problem is that people think that there is reason to believe that the theory of evolution is "wrong." True, there is always room for improvement, but so far the theory of evolution has proven to be one of the most reliable and robust theories in science. Even the theory of gravity is incomplete and has many holes, and in many ways is less solid than evolution. Either way it far surpasses the creationism bull, and I really wish people would understand that things are figured out by testing and learning, not by reading the bible and blindly listening to anything. And the truth doesn't give pro-creationists ammo. The simple fact that they have no ammo is what they base it on. It's like, "hey there's absolutely no evidence for this, so therefore it must be devinely true." It all boils down to the philosophical argument that NOTHING CAN BE PROVEN. Science relies entirely on this fact (the only "real fact" [wow that twists the mind]). However, lots of things CAN be disproved, but things that are not based in reality cannot be disproved, like creationism. The simple fact that they base it on nothing that has ever been observed makes them able to say that it cannot be disproved, which is unfortunate because it is absolutely insane. It's like me saying I and only I see purple bunnies all the time, and since you can't see them, you can't prove they're not there. We have words to call these people like schizophrenic. I don't think the masses of religious people are in fact schizophrenic intrinsically, but from the outside the difference cannot be seen. Sometimes these people also make the unfortunate mistake of harming others because they "believe" in something that isn't true ("delusions"). Catholicism is a great example of that. I might also say fundamentalist Islam is another example, but I cannot quite see through the war propaganda enough to stand behind that claim. How many scientific organizations have systematically killed or raped? Maybe they haven't been around long enough, but I just don't think science is driven to harm the way religion is. OK that's enough, sorry I really love this debait.
I think part of the problem is the negative connotation that anti-evolution people give to the word 'theory.' The truth is, 'facts' don't exist (in sciece anyway [and that's all that really matters]). One can make 'observations' and from those, develop theories. I don't see anyone trying to claim that gravity doesn't exist, yet it also is "only" a theory. The difference between gravity and evolution that makes it hard for people to accept one while they plainly expect the other, is that gravity happens in a time scale that is easily perceived within a human lifetime and evolution usually takes a much longer span of time to be noticed. The exceptions include rapidly reproducing organisms such as prokaryotes and viruses in which the mutation rate is fast enough to make the observation that the mutations are subject to selective pressures. Unfortunately, not everyone is privey to experiencing that observation, and so doubt lingers, unlike gravity, where everyone knows it exists. I'm not saying that the theory of evolution will never be disproven, or the theory of gravity for that matter (yet to be detected graviton particles???), but the slide in it's acceptance is more related to timescale of observations rather than from it being unsound or wrong. Getting back to the article, I am glad to see other people have asked the question about lateral gene transfere. I am curious about that myself. It would seem like all the genes they are using to do the phylogenetic analysis could possibly have originated from a different species. For large, multicellular creatures it's more obvious. There are only a limited number of ways for new genes to be added (viruses, etc.), but for single celled organisms, like algae, it's conceivable that there are many very simple vectors for lateral gene transfere. Such simpler systems involving fewer cells could simply eat up genetic material and incorporate it into their genomes, so I wonder if these things are taken into account. In all honesty, I think they probably are. Sequence conservation, biological history, and geological history, and lots of other tools seem like they would make it possible. But I mean come on! Opisthokonts? OPISTHOKONTS??? "Animals" just had such a nice ring to it ;)
"How much do we know about virii to safely declare legally".. Might be better to ask a lawyer about the legality, but as far as what we know about viruses, lets just say you probably wouldn't be alive without the vaccinations millions of children receive before they can talk. As for the virus leaping from monkeys to humans, I think you are misunderstanding what is really happening here. It is not that the virus exists in monkeys. It is a human virus (monkeys may be able to carry it, but that's not really our concern in this case; it has already presented in the human population). Monkeys are merely the source of a cellular tool to proliferate a crippled form of the virus. There are no acual whole live monkeys, but monkey kidney cells that are grown in cell culture. These are specially modified cells which do not occur naturally. They might as well have been dingo cells, although that would present a few more technical challeges. Ebola isn't going anywhere. Even if it can be changed to work with it in a BL3 instead of a BL4, it's still being contained in a highly controlled and monitored environment. Actually, Bush hates funding for genetic engineering because he is a moron, doesn't know better, and can't spare any extra cash from his oil enterprises (AKA killing Iraqis). How about we just stop funding for education and healthcare all together? It's just unholy right? Tell you what, how about the next time you are diagnosed with cancer or HIV or Ebola, how about you just ask God to take care of you, since you think scientists who come up with the medical technologies are so irrational. Obviously you would have better chances of surviving right? (I'm being sarcastic) Yee Haw!
That's great for the 2006 study. This abstract has a date of 2007 and doesn't claim to be double-blind, unfortunately.
an untuned radio is one that is tuned to a frequency specificly broadcasting nothing specific. sure it is tuned, but there is only background signal. A foot is still huge when you're talking about any kind of electric effects or microwave effects. How big is a water molecule? If a foot wavelength can affect you, you would feel the vibration, not loose sleep. I just think the people who made up this study are really stretching it. Especially for this type of research, they really need that "double-blind" adjective in there.
First of all, this is NOT a double-blind, placebo controlled study. Sure they used a placebo, but if it was double-blind they sure as heck would have mentioned it in the abstract. That means that the results are based more on the opinions of the people carrying out the study, since they would have known weather or not the subjects were receiving treatment or placebo. Second, unless you are equipped with sensitive antanai and receiving curcuitry, your body is quite incabaple of being affected by light with a wavelength bigger than a volkswagen beetle. (devide the speed of light by the frequency to see how large these waves really are) There is a reason radio telescopes are frikin huge. As for a microwave effect... wrong frequency, buddy. no... just.. no. also, It's not as exposing you to radio frequency is actually "adding" anything to your environment. We are being constantly struck by radio waves of every frequency, that is why an untuned radio plays static. The only difference in adding a transmittion is that the waves are made into something recognizable and put closer and brighter, but there are times when natural background radiation is even brighter than your cell phone's (aka bad reception).