You do understand what "mitochondrial Eve" and "y Adam" are all about, don't you? Why they represent a terminus ante quem for the origin of the species rather than a date for the origin of the species? And why their lifetimes could have been many millenia apart? And that the labels of "Adam" and "Eve" were good ways of catching the public's imagination, but are actually very misleading?
Yes, I'm fully aware of what the terms really mean vs. what many misunderstand them to mean.
The "coincidence" is irrelevant, because (a) it is now known that the site in question is not appropriate for calibrating a biological clock, and (b) the "mitochondrial Eve", regardless of the dating, does not indicate when the species originated.
a.) We now know the site is inappropriate for calibrating a biological clock primarily from cross referencing with... chimp mtDNA and the conclusions drawn from the relative rates. Observed rates of random mutations in chimps and other primates have brought about the conclusion that mtDNA random mutation rates vary based on genetic lineage. Thus making a bad biological clock over long time frames. Inconsistancies between observed random mutation rates in human mtDNA and predicted rates based on human/chimp mtDNA differences over ~5ma suggest that D-Loop mutations in mtDNA are non neutral over long time frames. BUT all of these evidences invalidating the use of mtDNA as a biological clock are strongly based on the assumption of human/chimp common ancestry ~5ma.
b.)Absolutely correct. The date of mtEve only suggests our last common maternal ancestor, who could easily have been one among a large population of similar females. However, that no way precludes mtEve being the biblical eve.
And then there's the date of the "y Adam", which sadly does not support your coincidence-based thinking.
And sadly, the date is based only on chromosome fixation rates from evolutionary based thinking(predicted chimp/human divergence dates). Much like mtEve was before Parsons measured observed random mutation rates.
Going back to the original "Research News" article in Science (vol 279 issue 5347 pg 28-29), we see that instead of this being evidence for a ~6000 year old mitochondrial eve, we have to reconsider some of our beliefs about mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), or more specifically a region of mtDNA called the D-loop, which comprises only 7% of mtDNA and which most mtDNA studies have used. One of the biggies is that most mtDNA studies use "so-called "noncoding" sequences of the control region of mtDNA, which do not code for gene products and therefore are thought to be free from natural selection." to quote the article.
The D-Loop may only comprise 7% of mtDNA but it was used because it was the most likely neutral section. The rest of the sequence codes for proteins and is likely selective. The only reason using this section is a 'problem' is if there are other factors affecting the sections fixation rate, which your following points summarize.
Another is to check and see if we are instead hitting "hotspots," regions with above-average mutation rates; hotspots will have more back- and parallel-mutations which will cloud the picture.
Which is currently being researched, but also has a heavy reliance on divergence times between chimp/human. Creationists aren't going to be compelled to reject a rate based on the fact it doesn't fit chimp/human divergence times. To them, that's just more evidence against the chimp/human divergence ever having happened.
A third is that the mutation rate may vary over time.
And may vary within lineages as well. Which is were this idea came from, our common chimp/human ancestor may have had a different mutation rate than humans do now, and so the current observed mutation rates are not valid for projections. This has been backed up by observing different random mutation rates in chimp mtDNA versus human mtDNA. But again, creationists only see this as more evidence that chimp and human never were related.
A fourth is to investigate the issue of heteroplasmy--having multiple mtDNA sequences, even though for a given region there should be only one. For a while it was thought to be rare, now 10-20% of the population could be heteroplasmic. All of these issues would need to be addressed by the creationists before it could be considered evidence of a ~6,000 year old mitochondrial eve rather than a problem with the underlying assumptions of the technique.
The bigger issue here is that the result of a 6,000 year old MTeve is the reason that the assumptions of the underlying technique are being questioned. Creationists were laughed at for saying the 100,000 year old date for MTeve was because of a problem with the underlying assumptions of the technique. And now they are laughed at for accepting the underlying assumptions of the technique. Yes, many creationist sites are simply jumping from one band wagon to another to get the results they wish. But don't make out as though there isn't a similar tendency on the other side of the fence. Rejecting the observed mutation rate because it is too high(evolutionists) is every bit as bad as rejecting a predicted rate because it is too low(creationists).
Actually, the Loewe and Sherer letter cited by your favorite creationist Web site does not argue for a 6,000 year old mitochondiral eve; they merely mention in passing that that would be the untenable effect of basing a molecular clock on one specific mDNA site that has come under investigation. They spend the rest of their letter proposing ways of understanding the mutation rates that would naively yield the date that they themselves reject.
A little more background on the Parsons paper. Untill the Parsons paper, mutation rates in ALL mtDNA regions were believed to be neutral. The projection made by the creationist site use precisely the same mtDNA clock methods that where used by evloutionary scientists to predict the 100k year MTeve before the high rates were discovered. To that point the mutation rates for the 100k year old MTeve were generated off mutation rates predicted from the divergence between chimp and human mtDNA. Nobody had tried measuring actual mutation rates from human forensic evidence. Parsons was the first to measure observed rates, and discovered a mutation rate 20x higher than the rates predicted by the chimp/human calibration. Parsons rejection of this rate was primarily based on the ridiculously high rate compared to the relatively low differences between chimp and human mtDNA. If mtDNA was neutral and chimp/human diverged ~5ma then the observed mutation rate was impossible. Thus the non-neutrality of mtDNA was proposed.
If you search for "mitochondrial eve" at PubMed and read the abstracts of more recent papers you will see other papers cautioning the use of mDNA for calibrating biological clocks.
And most of them have been trying to justify the difference between observed mutation rates in mtDNA with those predicted from chimp/human divergence rates. The explanation has always been that the random observed mutation rate in current studies is different than the fixation rate over millions of years. Selective pressure and hotspots were random mutations cancel each other out are among proposed explanations. The creationist conjecture that the chimp/human divergence assumptions are wrong are rejected out of hand as ridiculous. The coincidental 6k years for MTeve and same approx date from biblical records is merely that, a coincidence. Some people though don't reject that big a coincidence as lightly.
It's called the free press. Let CNN say what it wants to say. That's good in theory, but if the big media conglomerates use their market dominance to pressure out all sizable encumbents, you get a problem. The more market share available to them, the worse that situation gets, hence the problems with the FCC increasing the allowable market share. All the same arguments that have been made for content becoming more generic applies to the news as well.
Nothing more sinister than the idea of daring to defend the First Amendment to the Constitution; something you would want to take away from CNN because you want the content of their reporting censored. The issue is not CNN's right to free speech, it's market dominance by a single conglomerate. You can't tell me you wouldn't see problems with one big corporation gaining a monopoly on all media. This is just the same problem to a lesser degree, all the same issues can and do arise.
No, it was not. It was rather left-wing and anti-Bush (and this anti-Iraq) Bull, get news from other non-american stations and see just how anti-Bush their coverage has actually been. BBC and CBC are both good references and even as stations of American allies they show a strong contrast to the pro-Bush programming on CNN.
Because the accusations are true. The facts about the French government's close alliance with Saddam and their support of his mass murders were well known.
Check the BBC for the list of accusations falsely thrown at France from the American media. Also make sure to notice that American officials only deny making the accusations and don't argue that the accusations really were false. And french support of mass murders hasn't been suggested by anyone save yourself. Might as well blame the good old US of A for selling Saddam his WMD too then, surely he has some left over from his 'allies' in the Iran/Iraq conflict.
Fox is more trusted, as it is fair and balanced and shows both sides (instead of mainly the left-wing as CNN does).... and the food at Burger King is far superior to McDonalds, but untill you go check out a real restaurant you won't know what your missing.
so why are you restricting the voice of the big media? "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power"-- Mussolini
Because history has taught us it is a bad thing to have a very small and powerfull minority controlling what is broadcast to the majority. If the idea of simply allowing corporations to grow and expand with no controls at all doesn't scare you then think about the following. The US government does NOT control the federal reserve, it's controlled by private corporations, headed by unelected people. Now consider what America could become if those same individuals controlled all the major news outlets in the country. Now consider the what if situation that could occur if bad people got control of those interests? By the way, Mussolini watched Hitler's rise to power.
I'm rather shocked I haven't seen any complaints about the lack of diversity in news coverage that this will promote. Everyone has been yelling about the lack of diversity in entertainment broadcasting, but compared to news coverage that seems a bit of a minor detail. After occassionally checking out CNN's coverage of the recent war in Iraq I'm rather dismayed at any decision giving more power/control over the airwaves to such organizations. Am I just being a conspiracy theorist to suggest a more sinister potential behind decisions like this? I just can't see how allowing even more centralised control of the media is anything but a death signal for a democratic system.
CNN's one sided coverage of the decision to go to war was apallingly 'patriotic'. If American stations are only going to air news that supports the current administrations position, how can one expect the people as a whole to make informed decisions? Will CNN ever mention the false accusations that where made against France in what was basically a media smear campaign of a nation that disagreed with the Bush admin's plans? Nope, not good for ratings. America's most trusted source for news, there's a joke I won't be laughing at anytime soon.
JC is off on this. The specification document for "ARB_fragment_program" does not define a specific precision
Not to nitpick but the ARB specs do specify a minimum precision for ARB_fragment_program. From the Latest GL documentation: RESOLVED: We've decided not to include precision queries.
Implementations are expected to meet or exceed the precision guidelines set forth in the core GL spec, section 2.1.1, p. 6, as ammended by this extension.
To summarize section 2.1.1, the maximum representable magnitude of colors must be at least 2^10, while the maximum representable magnitude of other floating-point values must be at least 2^32. The individual results of floating-point perations must be accurate to about 1 part in 10^5.
I'll leave the tallying of what fp precision that comes out to for those more anal than myself. Or maybe just those looking for a chance to correct JC on a rather obscure technical detail;).
Why do you think Christ said 'God please forgive them for they know not what they do?'. Pain and dying was nothing to him.
I just want to point out how Christ does not fit your description of a Seer/Buddha here. You state that Pain and dying was nothing to him. But unless you doubt the Bible's description of Christ, he most certainly wasn't looking forward to the pain and death part of crucifixation. In the garden of Gethsemane Christ spends several hours praying for some other way for God's will to be done, but is willing to accept the pain and death if that is the only way. This hardly seems an example of someone to whom pain meant nothing.
I hope you read this. What evidence do you have that most terrorist acts are perpetrated by Arabs? The American press has been packed with terrorist this and terrorist that, with plenty of Al-Qaeda coverage to boot. But does that in any way reflect terrorist actions being largely those of Arab people/nations? Do you remember the days when you could never know if the person next to you might be a commie or not? If you have already thought about these questions, then what evidence has persuaded you that terrorism is such a predominately Arab activity? I have yet to see anything beyond the current narrow focus of CNN and other American networks.
Re:Brilliant solution.
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Brain Privacy
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When the technology is cheaply available to alter one's skin color will you dismiss any prejudice against African Americans with: Then just stop being Black.
Your missing ymgve's point. People choose to smoke. They do not choose the color of skin they are born with. Therefore the two examples are different. Discrimination based on the decisions an individual makes is a seperate issue from discrimination based on characteristics/attributes an individual is born with.
Accepting discriminatory practice when it seems like science, or saves us money, or only directly affects a class of people to which we don't belong, is always a bad choice. Always.
Furthermore, I hate to defend insurance companies, I really do. But if you sell life insurance, and it is proven that choosing to smoke makes it more likely you will die prematurely, then smoking should be a factor in insurance costs. This avoids most people's(myself included) definition of wrongfull discrimination because anyone worried about paying more for their insurance can choose not to smoke. You had good points about discrimination issues, but the insistence on pulling smoking along with just weakens your case. Why the insistance in dragging it in?
Damn, if you have to even ask that question you are dumber than a box of rocks. Guerilla warfare -- involves attacks by small but organized groups against a usually larger/better trained/better equiped opponent's military and/or military industrial complex. Anything that degrades the enemy military's ability to fight are valid targets. Targets of purely civilian nature are avoided as much as possible.
I guess Hiroshima was an example of terrorism then? If the definition of terrorism is simply the targetting of civilian populations then Hiroshima and Nagasaki are two examples of the worst terrorist acts in human history. My point though was that the definition of terrorism is very subjective in that it depends largely on what one considers acceptable behaviour when at war.
This is not an issue of racism and I do not harbor hatred for anybody or any race. I am, however, highlighting the reality that the majority of terrorism worldwide is spawned by radical Islamic fundamentalists sponsored (and perhaps brainwashed, if you will) by theocratic middle-east rouge nations.
That's the best summary of American propaganda I've seen yet. Do you have any statistics to present showing this majority? What constitutes a terrorist attack and what is 'legitimate' guerrilla warfare? Depending who you ask that question, Africa and South America must witness countless terrorist actions each day. Most of them likely unrelated to Islam, and almost certainly none of them related to middle-eastern oil. They just don't make the headlines in CNN because they happen so frequently there and don't involve North Americans very often.
And those states' governments are funded mostly by state-run oil programs. So if we shut off their primary revenue stream, we can cause collapse and reform *without* use of military force.
I have a very contrary perspective. Desperation and not religion(Islam) is the driving force of terrorism from my perspective. This means that pushing a nation to the point of economic collapse will likely result in more terrorism, not less.
And I also think we should switch to a hydrogen economy ASAP, not out of worry about so-called greenhouse gasses, but as the single most effective way to fight terrorism--shut off the money flow to the middle east!
Alright, I agreed up untill this last part scared me. Labelling terrorism as a by-product of the middle east falls too close to racism for my liking. Have you forgotten about Oklahoma City, or even Waco? I sincerely hope this was meant as a joke that I'm simply missing the humor in.
Re:Gene sequencing/splicing
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Ancient DNA
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But there is a difference between finding DNA in a 100k year frozen Mammoth corpse, and in million year old dinosaur fossils.
Re:Gene sequencing/splicing
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Ancient DNA
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They would not be damaged in the exact same way. It seems logical to me that if many different samples of these damaged strands were sequenced then statistics could be used to filter out the damaged portions from each individual sample and build a map of the original.
The problem with this is that the estimated rate of damage leaves little to no trace of the original sequence after about 10k years. You'd basically be looking for a statistical link between millions of cells with completely random sequences(because they'd been damaged so completely).
Re:Try 65,000,000 years - in real life!
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Ancient DNA
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Says who? Remarkable preservation of fossils...even soft bodied organisms (Burgess Shale for one...and that is in *much* older rocks), does occur. I don't find it so hard of a stretch that the conditions for burial and preservation were such that the entire bone did not become mineralized and left some traces of blood cells.
Says the majority of the scientific community. There is a huge difference between fossil preservation of basic structures and preservation of actual organic matter. Laboratory observation of DNA break down suggests 10k years as the upper limit beyond which it will have completely broken down. Even under extra-ordinary preservation circumstances the longest survivability I've seen suggested is 100k years. Preservation over a million years is simply not expected.
Accordingly Dr. Horner, the researcher who found the above t-rex 'red blood cells' is unconvinced that any protein remnants exist. The explanations and counter-arguements for what it actually is still aren't conclusive last I heard. I don't believe anyone close to the project though currently admits/believes that DNA can be extracted from their sample. Discovery of million year old DNA would be, to say the least, unexpected. Molecular biology suggests it as a near impossibility.
You mean that the entirety of geology is completely wrong because we "assume" the Earth has been around for 4.6GA? Does it not matter that multiple age dating techniques have produced, within error, the same dates when the proper assumptions are not violated? Does it not matter that all of this has been peer reviewed and accepted as good and proper science?
To play devil's advocate here, he could be referring to other assumptions than the age of the fossils. Yes it sounds like that is the most likely assumption they refer to, but assumptions about DNA decay rates are another possible reference. If those assumptions were somehow wrong, Jurrasic Park style DNA recovery might not be so impossible anymore. Though personally I'd be rather... surprised.
That would be true if we have interactive engines that can render arbitrary detailed and large geometry with negligable pre-processing. Unlike in off-line rendering world, the rendering engine will be tightly bound to geometry management part of the engine for the forseable future. You will always be able to squeeze out extra detail, or effects while trying to keep above 30fps by attacking the problem from new directions.
Very true, though I took that to be the 'minor' changes to the rendering engine Carmack implies would happen over time. The core of the rendering engine would remain largely unchanged, just changes to accomodate/optimise geometry management parts of the engine(I still think of them as distinct parts, just tightly interrelated).
Maybe he speaks of a very narrow geometry and material pusher part of the rendering engine. In that case OpenGL has been shown to emulate full RenderMan shaders for some time, but was not interactive or practical. I took the rendering engine to include geometry management needed for rendering (culling, shadow geometry, lod, impostors etc.) and graphic rendering algorithsm inherently dependent on it.
I agree. I think though that Carmack is differentiating between culling and lod done for the rendering and culling and lod done for general game purposes. The same Doom3 renderer currently rendering BSP tree's would not need any serious changes to render say, a paged ROAM terrain, or even a fully dynamic occluded oct-tree. I think what Carmack is getting at is that the renderer engine will only see minor changes to accomodate/optimise any largescale changes to the game engine's internal representation of geometry. Combine that with the RenderMan render quality of near future render engines and you don't really need to make big changes to the renderer engine for quite same time to come. I'd guess render engines setup for shaders won't need to change till 3d hardware starts switching to other methods of acceleration(true on card raytracing perhaps).
Currently the human race is on the path to extinction (or at least significant degredation). The fact is that large numbers of people with genetic mutations and just plain bag genes that would of been eliminated from the gene pool are now living and reproducing. When it comes to the longterm survival of the species we really only have a few alternatives.
Quite frankly I don't even see the problem that you do. What is it about the 'bad genes' that aren't being eliminated from our population that will eventually result in our extinction? I doubt we're likely to be eliminated by some other species more dominant than ourselves, save perhaps some virus. But I don't really see how any kind of 'bad genes' being held on to in our society increases our vulnerability to such a fate.
In fact, I can't think of any reason such genetic variability makes us more/less vulnerable to any extinction event(s). I think some focus on the actual existence of the problem needs to be done first; particularly before weighing radically dangerous 'solutions'. Attempts to implement many of your solutions could well start a war that would cause the feared extinction event far faster than the perceieved problem.
To everyone complaining about a lack of AI and physics advances in games. In particular, everyone ragging on Carmack because you think his comments ignore physics and ai enhancements to a 3d engine. Read what Carmack says, he states that the rendering engine will soon be stable and not rewritten for a long time. He is not saying major enhancements to 3d engines will not still be developed, he says major rendering enhancements need not be developed. He is basically observing what your complaining about, future enhancements will be less graphical and more on the simulation(ai/physics) aspects of a 3d engine.
With vertex and pixel shaders, the rendering engine can be written reasonably capable of lasting many years while still looking up to date. This leaves the other aspects of a 3d game engine as areas where that effort will be pushed. Carmack recognizes that people like himself who primarily push the rendering portion of engines, will soon work themselves out of a job. That doesn't mean other aspects of engine design are being ignored by him, he's just aware of his focus on graphics/renderer enhancements over the years.
I think your missing Carmack's point. - soft shadows or realtime radiosity lighting. This might be not that far off, but a lot of intersting research will be involved on top of current stencil-buffer and projected depth map based techniques. - high dynamic range (hdr) light calculation across the entire pipeline, including effects like light bloom and hdr reflections. you start to see some of this in Splinter Cell. - real-time, arbitrary resolution, procedurally generated texture maps and generated displacement maps (ex. RenderMan). The previous methods of doing texturing progressed from manually shaded (doom-quake3), to manually colored with normal maps for shading (doom3). The general case would be to use nothing except procedural shaders and geometry to generate all detail before approximated by texture maps.
All of these features should be implementable through a combination of pixel and vertex shader programs. Carmack says that the rendering engine will remain largely unchanged. On this point he is quite right, the actual rendering engine can now be built capable of handling all the effects you mention by taking in artwork with associated vertex/pixel programs to achieve the above effects. Essientially, the effects you mention need no longer be hardwired features of the rendering engine. One rendering engine can gracefully handle all those features based on the artwork and shader programs it reads in.
- arbitrarily dynamic solid world geometry. Current renering engines work with a heavily pre-processsed visible shell of the world, which can be modified only in special rigid cases. It will take some effort for an engine to deform or destroy arbitrary world geometry. Imagine taking off a chunk of the wall and seing the layers of concrete underneath, then having the building collapse when supports are removed.
Again, this isn't a part of the rendering engine. Carmack's still right in that rendering engines will pretty much max out in the near future. Your point speaks to other aspects of a general purpose 3D engine, which is going beyond the scope of what Carmack actually said. The rendering engine is only a small part of a full 3d engine and Carmack is merely observing that part is soon going to be as good as it can/need be.
Re:A letter to our fair-weathered friends
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Your "apology" while lame and ignorant, is not representative of all Canadians.
It wasn't intended to represent any Canadians. 'This hour has 22 minutes' is a canadian comedy program. As I said, I was meaning to lighten the mood a little. It was not intended as a serious criticism of America.
Bottom line, Saddam is a dictator who has killed more Iraqi citizens than the U.S. ever will. If we don't remove him, then who will? How long will they wait before doing so - after he murders another million or so of his own people?
I think everyone is agreed that Saddam is a dictator and that the Iraqi people would be far better off without him. How to achieve the goal of removing Saddam with the least harm to the Iraqi people and the stability of the middle east in general is a complex issue though. To suggest the current war is obviously the best means to such an end is trivializing the complexities involved.
Post like this apology from Canada are fueled by one thing, hate for America, and ignorance to world needs. Like the French, you want to see the U.S. fall out of power.
The 'apology' was fueled by a comedian, and meant as such, but suggesting France wants to see America fall out of power is just silly. Other sovereign nations have a right to their own opinions on how to solve world problems. The plight of the Iraqi people is not as simple as you seem to think. Accusing other nations of ignorance to world needs because they don't back the current war is, well, ignorant. Why was the second resolution from the UN pushed for so hard? Clearly the UN's opinion holds some value to the American government. To cast the UN's opinion aside because the American government disagrees is at best arrogant, and at worst reckless and dangerous.
Canadian Apology to America
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Having seen a few criticisms from American officials regarding other nation's opposition to the war, I was reminded of a few word's Rick Mercer had to say on 'This hour has 22 minutes'. I present this not to criticize America, but in hopes of lightening the mood a little:
On behalf of Canadians everywhere I'd like to offer an apology to the United States of America. We haven't been getting along very well recently and for that, I am truly sorry.
I'm sorry we called George Bush a moron. He is a moron but, it wasn't nice of us to point it out. If it's any consolation, the fact that he's a moron shouldn't reflect poorly on the people of America. After all it's not like you actually elected him.
I'm sorry about our softwood lumber. Just because we have more trees than you doesn't give us the right to sell you lumber that's cheaper and better than your own.
I'm sorry we beat you in Olympic hockey. In our defense I guess our excuse would be that our team was much, much, much, much better than yours.
I'm sorry we burnt down your White House during the War of 1812. I notice you've rebuilt it! It's very nice. I'm sorry about your beer. I know we had nothing to do with your beer but, we feel your pain.
I'm sorry about our waffling on Iraq. I mean, when you're going up against a crazed dictator, you wanna have your friends by your side. I realize it took more than two years before you guys pitched in against Hitler, but that was different. Everyone knew he had weapons.
And finally on behalf of all Canadians, I'm sorry that we're constantly apologizing for things in a passive-aggressive way which is really a thinly veiled criticism. I sincerely hope that you're not upset over this - We've seen what you do to countries you get upset with.
Creationism certainly did mean exactly that, until science showed, beyond any reasonable doubt, that species do go extinct, species do adapt, species do evolve. Then the Creationist changed their tune, started talking about species "changing, but only within their kind". They conceded "microevolution", but not "macroevolution" (phrases which they coined, and have absolutely no meaning in the real world).
Perhaps, in the most extremely ignorant section of the crowd that forgot about the whole noah's ark thing. But you are misrepresenting mainstream(is there such a thing?) creationist opinions. Most creationist's for the last few decades at least have fully believed that micro evolution of species is very wide spread. By creationist assumptions of a literal noah's flood, non-static species are absolutely required.
Anyway, your definition of Creationism is much more limited than the more virulent strain that's been repeatedly disproven by findings like this. Believe it or not, there are people who refuse to believe that new species can evolve, period. According to them, all species that ever existed, or will ever exist, were created during Genesis.
Again your confusing creationist views for the last few decades. I wouldn't be a stickler on this but many evolutionary theories from a few decades ago have also changed a great deal. Your confusing the definition of species which scientist's use and the one meant by creationist's when they refer to species. Creationists really aught to use different terms like 'kinds' or 'baramines' or some other more clear terminology. The belief is that new 'kinds' can not arise, and the definition of kinds allows for a 'new species' to develop from a former kind. It is just considered a mutated form of the original kind. Now, defining 'kind' in a meaningfull way is a problem. I've still not seen a good definition of it beyond the originally created species. Which is quite useless in most any current context.
Slashdot Mirror
You do understand what "mitochondrial Eve" and "y Adam" are all about, don't you? Why they represent a terminus ante quem for the origin of the species rather than a date for the origin of the species? And why their lifetimes could have been many millenia apart? And that the labels of "Adam" and "Eve" were good ways of catching the public's imagination, but are actually very misleading?
Yes, I'm fully aware of what the terms really mean vs. what many misunderstand them to mean.
The "coincidence" is irrelevant, because (a) it is now known that the site in question is not appropriate for calibrating a biological clock, and (b) the "mitochondrial Eve", regardless of the dating, does not indicate when the species originated.
a.) We now know the site is inappropriate for calibrating a biological clock primarily from cross referencing with... chimp mtDNA and the conclusions drawn from the relative rates. Observed rates of random mutations in chimps and other primates have brought about the conclusion that mtDNA random mutation rates vary based on genetic lineage. Thus making a bad biological clock over long time frames. Inconsistancies between observed random mutation rates in human mtDNA and predicted rates based on human/chimp mtDNA differences over ~5ma suggest that D-Loop mutations in mtDNA are non neutral over long time frames. BUT all of these evidences invalidating the use of mtDNA as a biological clock are strongly based on the assumption of human/chimp common ancestry ~5ma.
b.)Absolutely correct. The date of mtEve only suggests our last common maternal ancestor, who could easily have been one among a large population of similar females. However, that no way precludes mtEve being the biblical eve.
And then there's the date of the "y Adam", which sadly does not support your coincidence-based thinking.
And sadly, the date is based only on chromosome fixation rates from evolutionary based thinking(predicted chimp/human divergence dates). Much like mtEve was before Parsons measured observed random mutation rates.
Going back to the original "Research News" article in Science (vol 279 issue 5347 pg 28-29), we see that instead of this being evidence for a ~6000 year old mitochondrial eve, we have to reconsider some of our beliefs about mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), or more specifically a region of mtDNA called the D-loop, which comprises only 7% of mtDNA and which most mtDNA studies have used. One of the biggies is that most mtDNA studies use "so-called "noncoding" sequences of the control region of mtDNA, which do not code for gene products and therefore are thought to be free from natural selection." to quote the article.
The D-Loop may only comprise 7% of mtDNA but it was used because it was the most likely neutral section. The rest of the sequence codes for proteins and is likely selective. The only reason using this section is a 'problem' is if there are other factors affecting the sections fixation rate, which your following points summarize.
Another is to check and see if we are instead hitting "hotspots," regions with above-average mutation rates; hotspots will have more back- and parallel-mutations which will cloud the picture.
Which is currently being researched, but also has a heavy reliance on divergence times between chimp/human. Creationists aren't going to be compelled to reject a rate based on the fact it doesn't fit chimp/human divergence times. To them, that's just more evidence against the chimp/human divergence ever having happened.
A third is that the mutation rate may vary over time.
And may vary within lineages as well. Which is were this idea came from, our common chimp/human ancestor may have had a different mutation rate than humans do now, and so the current observed mutation rates are not valid for projections. This has been backed up by observing different random mutation rates in chimp mtDNA versus human mtDNA. But again, creationists only see this as more evidence that chimp and human never were related.
A fourth is to investigate the issue of heteroplasmy--having multiple mtDNA sequences, even though for a given region there should be only one. For a while it was thought to be rare, now 10-20% of the population could be heteroplasmic. All of these issues would need to be addressed by the creationists before it could be considered evidence of a ~6,000 year old mitochondrial eve rather than a problem with the underlying assumptions of the technique.
The bigger issue here is that the result of a 6,000 year old MTeve is the reason that the assumptions of the underlying technique are being questioned. Creationists were laughed at for saying the 100,000 year old date for MTeve was because of a problem with the underlying assumptions of the technique. And now they are laughed at for accepting the underlying assumptions of the technique. Yes, many creationist sites are simply jumping from one band wagon to another to get the results they wish. But don't make out as though there isn't a similar tendency on the other side of the fence. Rejecting the observed mutation rate because it is too high(evolutionists) is every bit as bad as rejecting a predicted rate because it is too low(creationists).
Actually, the Loewe and Sherer letter cited by your favorite creationist Web site does not argue for a 6,000 year old mitochondiral eve; they merely mention in passing that that would be the untenable effect of basing a molecular clock on one specific mDNA site that has come under investigation. They spend the rest of their letter proposing ways of understanding the mutation rates that would naively yield the date that they themselves reject.
A little more background on the Parsons paper. Untill the Parsons paper, mutation rates in ALL mtDNA regions were believed to be neutral. The projection made by the creationist site use precisely the same mtDNA clock methods that where used by evloutionary scientists to predict the 100k year MTeve before the high rates were discovered. To that point the mutation rates for the 100k year old MTeve were generated off mutation rates predicted from the divergence between chimp and human mtDNA. Nobody had tried measuring actual mutation rates from human forensic evidence. Parsons was the first to measure observed rates, and discovered a mutation rate 20x higher than the rates predicted by the chimp/human calibration. Parsons rejection of this rate was primarily based on the ridiculously high rate compared to the relatively low differences between chimp and human mtDNA. If mtDNA was neutral and chimp/human diverged ~5ma then the observed mutation rate was impossible. Thus the non-neutrality of mtDNA was proposed.
If you search for "mitochondrial eve" at PubMed and read the abstracts of more recent papers you will see other papers cautioning the use of mDNA for calibrating biological clocks.
And most of them have been trying to justify the difference between observed mutation rates in mtDNA with those predicted from chimp/human divergence rates. The explanation has always been that the random observed mutation rate in current studies is different than the fixation rate over millions of years. Selective pressure and hotspots were random mutations cancel each other out are among proposed explanations. The creationist conjecture that the chimp/human divergence assumptions are wrong are rejected out of hand as ridiculous. The coincidental 6k years for MTeve and same approx date from biblical records is merely that, a coincidence. Some people though don't reject that big a coincidence as lightly.
To my knowledge the do DNC list applies to automated dialing services, so as long as your dialing the businesses by hand there should be no problem.
It's called the free press. Let CNN say what it wants to say.
... and the food at Burger King is far superior to McDonalds, but untill you go check out a real restaurant you won't know what your missing.
That's good in theory, but if the big media conglomerates use their market dominance to pressure out all sizable encumbents, you get a problem. The more market share available to them, the worse that situation gets, hence the problems with the FCC increasing the allowable market share. All the same arguments that have been made for content becoming more generic applies to the news as well.
Nothing more sinister than the idea of daring to defend the First Amendment to the Constitution; something you would want to take away from CNN because you want the content of their reporting censored.
The issue is not CNN's right to free speech, it's market dominance by a single conglomerate. You can't tell me you wouldn't see problems with one big corporation gaining a monopoly on all media. This is just the same problem to a lesser degree, all the same issues can and do arise.
No, it was not. It was rather left-wing and anti-Bush (and this anti-Iraq)
Bull, get news from other non-american stations and see just how anti-Bush their coverage has actually been. BBC and CBC are both good references and even as stations of American allies they show a strong contrast to the pro-Bush programming on CNN.
Because the accusations are true. The facts about the French government's close alliance with Saddam and their support of his mass murders were well known.
Check the BBC for the list of accusations falsely thrown at France from the American media. Also make sure to notice that American officials only deny making the accusations and don't argue that the accusations really were false. And french support of mass murders hasn't been suggested by anyone save yourself. Might as well blame the good old US of A for selling Saddam his WMD too then, surely he has some left over from his 'allies' in the Iran/Iraq conflict.
Fox is more trusted, as it is fair and balanced and shows both sides (instead of mainly the left-wing as CNN does).
so why are you restricting the voice of the big media?
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power"-- Mussolini
Because history has taught us it is a bad thing to have a very small and powerfull minority controlling what is broadcast to the majority. If the idea of simply allowing corporations to grow and expand with no controls at all doesn't scare you then think about the following. The US government does NOT control the federal reserve, it's controlled by private corporations, headed by unelected people. Now consider what America could become if those same individuals controlled all the major news outlets in the country. Now consider the what if situation that could occur if bad people got control of those interests? By the way, Mussolini watched Hitler's rise to power.
I'm rather shocked I haven't seen any complaints about the lack of diversity in news coverage that this will promote. Everyone has been yelling about the lack of diversity in entertainment broadcasting, but compared to news coverage that seems a bit of a minor detail. After occassionally checking out CNN's coverage of the recent war in Iraq I'm rather dismayed at any decision giving more power/control over the airwaves to such organizations. Am I just being a conspiracy theorist to suggest a more sinister potential behind decisions like this? I just can't see how allowing even more centralised control of the media is anything but a death signal for a democratic system.
CNN's one sided coverage of the decision to go to war was apallingly 'patriotic'. If American stations are only going to air news that supports the current administrations position, how can one expect the people as a whole to make informed decisions? Will CNN ever mention the false accusations that where made against France in what was basically a media smear campaign of a nation that disagreed with the Bush admin's plans? Nope, not good for ratings. America's most trusted source for news, there's a joke I won't be laughing at anytime soon.
JC is off on this. The specification document for "ARB_fragment_program" does not define a specific precision
;).
Not to nitpick but the ARB specs do specify a minimum precision for ARB_fragment_program. From the Latest GL documentation:
RESOLVED: We've decided not to include precision queries.
Implementations are expected to meet or exceed the precision guidelines set forth in the core GL spec, section 2.1.1, p. 6, as ammended by this extension.
To summarize section 2.1.1, the maximum representable magnitude of colors must be at least 2^10, while the maximum representable magnitude of other floating-point values must be at least 2^32. The individual results of floating-point perations must be accurate to about 1 part in 10^5.
I'll leave the tallying of what fp precision that comes out to for those more anal than myself. Or maybe just those looking for a chance to correct JC on a rather obscure technical detail
Why do you think Christ said 'God please forgive them for they know not what they do?'. Pain and dying was nothing to him.
I just want to point out how Christ does not fit your description of a Seer/Buddha here. You state that Pain and dying was nothing to him. But unless you doubt the Bible's description of Christ, he most certainly wasn't looking forward to the pain and death part of crucifixation. In the garden of Gethsemane Christ spends several hours praying for some other way for God's will to be done, but is willing to accept the pain and death if that is the only way. This hardly seems an example of someone to whom pain meant nothing.
I hope you read this. What evidence do you have that most terrorist acts are perpetrated by Arabs? The American press has been packed with terrorist this and terrorist that, with plenty of Al-Qaeda coverage to boot. But does that in any way reflect terrorist actions being largely those of Arab people/nations? Do you remember the days when you could never know if the person next to you might be a commie or not? If you have already thought about these questions, then what evidence has persuaded you that terrorism is such a predominately Arab activity? I have yet to see anything beyond the current narrow focus of CNN and other American networks.
When the technology is cheaply available to alter one's skin color will you dismiss any prejudice against African Americans with:
Then just stop being Black.
Your missing ymgve's point. People choose to smoke. They do not choose the color of skin they are born with. Therefore the two examples are different. Discrimination based on the decisions an individual makes is a seperate issue from discrimination based on characteristics/attributes an individual is born with.
Accepting discriminatory practice when it seems like science, or saves us money, or only directly affects a class of people to which we don't belong, is always a bad choice. Always.
Furthermore, I hate to defend insurance companies, I really do. But if you sell life insurance, and it is proven that choosing to smoke makes it more likely you will die prematurely, then smoking should be a factor in insurance costs. This avoids most people's(myself included) definition of wrongfull discrimination because anyone worried about paying more for their insurance can choose not to smoke. You had good points about discrimination issues, but the insistence on pulling smoking along with just weakens your case. Why the insistance in dragging it in?
Damn, if you have to even ask that question you are dumber than a box of rocks.
Guerilla warfare -- involves attacks by small but organized groups against a usually larger/better trained/better equiped opponent's military and/or military industrial complex. Anything that degrades the enemy military's ability to fight are valid targets. Targets of purely civilian nature are avoided as much as possible.
I guess Hiroshima was an example of terrorism then? If the definition of terrorism is simply the targetting of civilian populations then Hiroshima and Nagasaki are two examples of the worst terrorist acts in human history. My point though was that the definition of terrorism is very subjective in that it depends largely on what one considers acceptable behaviour when at war.
This is not an issue of racism and I do not harbor hatred for anybody or any race. I am, however, highlighting the reality that the majority of terrorism worldwide is spawned by radical Islamic fundamentalists sponsored (and perhaps brainwashed, if you will) by theocratic middle-east rouge nations.
That's the best summary of American propaganda I've seen yet. Do you have any statistics to present showing this majority? What constitutes a terrorist attack and what is 'legitimate' guerrilla warfare? Depending who you ask that question, Africa and South America must witness countless terrorist actions each day. Most of them likely unrelated to Islam, and almost certainly none of them related to middle-eastern oil. They just don't make the headlines in CNN because they happen so frequently there and don't involve North Americans very often.
And those states' governments are funded mostly by state-run oil programs. So if we shut off their primary revenue stream, we can cause collapse and reform *without* use of military force.
I have a very contrary perspective. Desperation and not religion(Islam) is the driving force of terrorism from my perspective. This means that pushing a nation to the point of economic collapse will likely result in more terrorism, not less.
And I also think we should switch to a hydrogen economy ASAP, not out of worry about so-called greenhouse gasses, but as the single most effective way to fight terrorism--shut off the money flow to the middle east!
Alright, I agreed up untill this last part scared me. Labelling terrorism as a by-product of the middle east falls too close to racism for my liking. Have you forgotten about Oklahoma City, or even Waco? I sincerely hope this was meant as a joke that I'm simply missing the humor in.
But there is a difference between finding DNA in a 100k year frozen Mammoth corpse, and in million year old dinosaur fossils.
They would not be damaged in the exact same way. It seems logical to me that if many different samples of these damaged strands were sequenced then statistics could be used to filter out the damaged portions from each individual sample and build a map of the original.
The problem with this is that the estimated rate of damage leaves little to no trace of the original sequence after about 10k years. You'd basically be looking for a statistical link between millions of cells with completely random sequences(because they'd been damaged so completely).
Says who? Remarkable preservation of fossils...even soft bodied organisms (Burgess Shale for one...and that is in *much* older rocks), does occur. I don't find it so hard of a stretch that the conditions for burial and preservation were such that the entire bone did not become mineralized and left some traces of blood cells.
Says the majority of the scientific community. There is a huge difference between fossil preservation of basic structures and preservation of actual organic matter. Laboratory observation of DNA break down suggests 10k years as the upper limit beyond which it will have completely broken down. Even under extra-ordinary preservation circumstances the longest survivability I've seen suggested is 100k years. Preservation over a million years is simply not expected.
Accordingly Dr. Horner, the researcher who found the above t-rex 'red blood cells' is unconvinced that any protein remnants exist. The explanations and counter-arguements for what it actually is still aren't conclusive last I heard. I don't believe anyone close to the project though currently admits/believes that DNA can be extracted from their sample. Discovery of million year old DNA would be, to say the least, unexpected. Molecular biology suggests it as a near impossibility.
You mean that the entirety of geology is completely wrong because we "assume" the Earth has been around for 4.6GA? Does it not matter that multiple age dating techniques have produced, within error, the same dates when the proper assumptions are not violated? Does it not matter that all of this has been peer reviewed and accepted as good and proper science?
To play devil's advocate here, he could be referring to other assumptions than the age of the fossils. Yes it sounds like that is the most likely assumption they refer to, but assumptions about DNA decay rates are another possible reference. If those assumptions were somehow wrong, Jurrasic Park style DNA recovery might not be so impossible anymore. Though personally I'd be rather... surprised.
That would be true if we have interactive engines that can render arbitrary detailed and large geometry with negligable pre-processing. Unlike in off-line rendering world, the rendering engine will be tightly bound to geometry management part of the engine for the forseable future. You will always be able to squeeze out extra detail, or effects while trying to keep above 30fps by attacking the problem from new directions.
Very true, though I took that to be the 'minor' changes to the rendering engine Carmack implies would happen over time. The core of the rendering engine would remain largely unchanged, just changes to accomodate/optimise geometry management parts of the engine(I still think of them as distinct parts, just tightly interrelated).
Maybe he speaks of a very narrow geometry and material pusher part of the rendering engine. In that case OpenGL has been shown to emulate full RenderMan shaders for some time, but was not interactive or practical. I took the rendering engine to include geometry management needed for rendering (culling, shadow geometry, lod, impostors etc.) and graphic rendering algorithsm inherently dependent on it.
I agree. I think though that Carmack is differentiating between culling and lod done for the rendering and culling and lod done for general game purposes. The same Doom3 renderer currently rendering BSP tree's would not need any serious changes to render say, a paged ROAM terrain, or even a fully dynamic occluded oct-tree. I think what Carmack is getting at is that the renderer engine will only see minor changes to accomodate/optimise any largescale changes to the game engine's internal representation of geometry. Combine that with the RenderMan render quality of near future render engines and you don't really need to make big changes to the renderer engine for quite same time to come. I'd guess render engines setup for shaders won't need to change till 3d hardware starts switching to other methods of acceleration(true on card raytracing perhaps).
Currently the human race is on the path to extinction (or at least significant degredation). The fact is that large numbers of people with genetic mutations and just plain bag genes that would of been eliminated from the gene pool are now living and reproducing. When it comes to the longterm survival of the species we really only have a few alternatives.
Quite frankly I don't even see the problem that you do. What is it about the 'bad genes' that aren't being eliminated from our population that will eventually result in our extinction? I doubt we're likely to be eliminated by some other species more dominant than ourselves, save perhaps some virus. But I don't really see how any kind of 'bad genes' being held on to in our society increases our vulnerability to such a fate.
In fact, I can't think of any reason such genetic variability makes us more/less vulnerable to any extinction event(s). I think some focus on the actual existence of the problem needs to be done first; particularly before weighing radically dangerous 'solutions'. Attempts to implement many of your solutions could well start a war that would cause the feared extinction event far faster than the perceieved problem.
To everyone complaining about a lack of AI and physics advances in games. In particular, everyone ragging on Carmack because you think his comments ignore physics and ai enhancements to a 3d engine. Read what Carmack says, he states that the rendering engine will soon be stable and not rewritten for a long time. He is not saying major enhancements to 3d engines will not still be developed, he says major rendering enhancements need not be developed. He is basically observing what your complaining about, future enhancements will be less graphical and more on the simulation(ai/physics) aspects of a 3d engine.
With vertex and pixel shaders, the rendering engine can be written reasonably capable of lasting many years while still looking up to date. This leaves the other aspects of a 3d game engine as areas where that effort will be pushed. Carmack recognizes that people like himself who primarily push the rendering portion of engines, will soon work themselves out of a job. That doesn't mean other aspects of engine design are being ignored by him, he's just aware of his focus on graphics/renderer enhancements over the years.
I think your missing Carmack's point.
- soft shadows or realtime radiosity lighting. This might be not that far off, but a lot of intersting research will be involved on top of current stencil-buffer and projected depth map based techniques.
- high dynamic range (hdr) light calculation across the entire pipeline, including effects like light bloom and hdr reflections. you start to see some of this in Splinter Cell.
- real-time, arbitrary resolution, procedurally generated texture maps and generated displacement maps (ex. RenderMan). The previous methods of doing texturing progressed from manually shaded (doom-quake3), to manually colored with normal maps for shading (doom3). The general case would be to use nothing except procedural shaders and geometry to generate all detail before approximated by texture maps.
All of these features should be implementable through a combination of pixel and vertex shader programs. Carmack says that the rendering engine will remain largely unchanged. On this point he is quite right, the actual rendering engine can now be built capable of handling all the effects you mention by taking in artwork with associated vertex/pixel programs to achieve the above effects. Essientially, the effects you mention need no longer be hardwired features of the rendering engine. One rendering engine can gracefully handle all those features based on the artwork and shader programs it reads in.
- arbitrarily dynamic solid world geometry. Current renering engines work with a heavily pre-processsed visible shell of the world, which can be modified only in special rigid cases. It will take some effort for an engine to deform or destroy arbitrary world geometry. Imagine taking off a chunk of the wall and seing the layers of concrete underneath, then having the building collapse when supports are removed.
Again, this isn't a part of the rendering engine. Carmack's still right in that rendering engines will pretty much max out in the near future. Your point speaks to other aspects of a general purpose 3D engine, which is going beyond the scope of what Carmack actually said. The rendering engine is only a small part of a full 3d engine and Carmack is merely observing that part is soon going to be as good as it can/need be.
Your "apology" while lame and ignorant, is not representative of all Canadians.
It wasn't intended to represent any Canadians. 'This hour has 22 minutes' is a canadian comedy program. As I said, I was meaning to lighten the mood a little. It was not intended as a serious criticism of America.
Bottom line, Saddam is a dictator who has killed more Iraqi citizens than the U.S. ever will. If we don't remove him, then who will? How long will they wait before doing so - after he murders another million or so of his own people?
I think everyone is agreed that Saddam is a dictator and that the Iraqi people would be far better off without him. How to achieve the goal of removing Saddam with the least harm to the Iraqi people and the stability of the middle east in general is a complex issue though. To suggest the current war is obviously the best means to such an end is trivializing the complexities involved.
Post like this apology from Canada are fueled by one thing, hate for America, and ignorance to world needs. Like the French, you want to see the U.S. fall out of power.
The 'apology' was fueled by a comedian, and meant as such, but suggesting France wants to see America fall out of power is just silly. Other sovereign nations have a right to their own opinions on how to solve world problems. The plight of the Iraqi people is not as simple as you seem to think. Accusing other nations of ignorance to world needs because they don't back the current war is, well, ignorant. Why was the second resolution from the UN pushed for so hard? Clearly the UN's opinion holds some value to the American government. To cast the UN's opinion aside because the American government disagrees is at best arrogant, and at worst reckless and dangerous.
Having seen a few criticisms from American officials regarding other nation's opposition to the war, I was reminded of a few word's Rick Mercer had to say on 'This hour has 22 minutes'. I present this not to criticize America, but in hopes of lightening the mood a little:
On behalf of Canadians everywhere I'd like to offer an apology to the United States of America. We haven't been getting along very well recently and for that, I am truly sorry.
I'm sorry we called George Bush a moron. He is a moron but, it wasn't nice of us to point it out. If it's any consolation, the fact that he's a moron shouldn't reflect poorly on the people of America. After all it's not like you actually elected him.
I'm sorry about our softwood lumber. Just because we have more trees than you doesn't give us the right to sell you lumber that's cheaper and better than your own.
I'm sorry we beat you in Olympic hockey. In our defense I guess our excuse would be that our team was much, much, much, much better than yours.
I'm sorry we burnt down your White House during the War of 1812. I notice you've rebuilt it! It's very nice. I'm sorry about your beer. I know we had nothing to do with your beer but, we feel your pain.
I'm sorry about our waffling on Iraq. I mean, when you're going up against a crazed dictator, you wanna have your friends by your side. I realize it took more than two years before you guys pitched in against Hitler, but that was different. Everyone knew he had weapons.
And finally on behalf of all Canadians, I'm sorry that we're constantly apologizing for things in a passive-aggressive way which is really a thinly veiled criticism. I sincerely hope that you're not upset over this - We've seen what you do to countries you get upset with.
Thank you.
Try comparing CNN's coverage to that on bbc/cbc and you start noticing some pretty important and frequent ommissions.
Creationism certainly did mean exactly that, until science showed, beyond any reasonable doubt, that species do go extinct, species do adapt, species do evolve. Then the Creationist changed their tune, started talking about species "changing, but only within their kind". They conceded "microevolution", but not "macroevolution" (phrases which they coined, and have absolutely no meaning in the real world).
Perhaps, in the most extremely ignorant section of the crowd that forgot about the whole noah's ark thing. But you are misrepresenting mainstream(is there such a thing?) creationist opinions. Most creationist's for the last few decades at least have fully believed that micro evolution of species is very wide spread. By creationist assumptions of a literal noah's flood, non-static species are absolutely required.
Anyway, your definition of Creationism is much more limited than the more virulent strain that's been repeatedly disproven by findings like this. Believe it or not, there are people who refuse to believe that new species can evolve, period. According to them, all species that ever existed, or will ever exist, were created during Genesis.
Again your confusing creationist views for the last few decades. I wouldn't be a stickler on this but many evolutionary theories from a few decades ago have also changed a great deal. Your confusing the definition of species which scientist's use and the one meant by creationist's when they refer to species. Creationists really aught to use different terms like 'kinds' or 'baramines' or some other more clear terminology. The belief is that new 'kinds' can not arise, and the definition of kinds allows for a 'new species' to develop from a former kind. It is just considered a mutated form of the original kind. Now, defining 'kind' in a meaningfull way is a problem. I've still not seen a good definition of it beyond the originally created species. Which is quite useless in most any current context.