> There was then a really long period before the evolution of eukaryotic life, but that isn't germane here.
It might be germane. If the step abiotic->prokaryotic is much more likely than the step prokaryotic->eukaryotic then we'd expect to see precisely the result we see: the first step happening quickly compared to the second step. This would be true even if both steps were a priori incredibly unlikely because we're looking at probabilities conditioned on the fact that eukaryotic life did arise.
> The evidence seems to show that the appearance of cellular life occurred quickly after the Earth developed a stable surface cool enough for widespread liquid water.
That's an interesting but tricky way to argue. After all, what we observe is conditioned on the fact that we are here now and hence that there needs to have been ample time for our own evolution. Frankly, as soon as we veer to close to anthropic arguments I'm no longer as confident as I once was about what arguments are valid. (But check out section 3.6 of Barrow and Tipler.)
> This seems like a pretty dubious assumption to me.
We don't know how life arose on Earth but the assembly of complex self-reproducers from simpler compounds doesn't seem like any everyday occurrence. We do know that material can be transferred from Mars to Earth and possibly vice versa. So if we find life on Mars we have three scenarios:
Life arises spontaneously on Mars by unknown mechanism. Life arises spontaneously on Earth by unknown mechanism.
Life arises spontaneously on Mars by unknown mechanism. Life is transported to Earth by known mechanism.
Life arises spontaneously on Earth by unknown mechanism. Life is transported to Mars by known mechanism.
A simple application of Bayes' theorem tells us that the first is the least likely.
...are more important to our society than the value of contracts then by all means, go ahead and violate your contract. But next time think before you accept money in return for something.
> we have plenty of signs that Neanderthals were every bit as evolved as the Cro-Magnons
Well given that contemporary Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, as well as frogs and mushrooms, are all presumed to share a common ancestry, they are all precisely as evolved as each other.
I wish people would stop using the word 'evolved' to mean whatever it is that they would like it to mean and use it for what it actually means.
What is that supposed to demonstrate? That's why they're called *friends*, doh! Friends are the people who tell you you're not fat, you're not ugly, you're not stupid, and that your ideas are cool. Come back when your enemies are worried because your idea is cool.
For God' sake, it's cue. Cue, cue, cue! Get that into your thick skull. You don't queue jokes unless you're writing an asynchronous joke server in Java or something.
That's not news. PhD's are ten a penny and I see no reason to assume that rock legends are less intelligent than the rest of us. It's like those news stories that make a big deal of educated women. "And she has a degree in Mathematics - ooh, aah!"
Now a PhD becoming a rock legend on the other hand. That would be news! Becoming a rock legend is not an ordinary everyday occurrence.
...the closer will be the average scores of men and women. As you go up the ranks of academia you'll find fewer and fewer women - even in mathematics departments of Scandinavian universities that people claim are more equal. (That statistic is easy to check with a web browser BTW) Fewer women are good at the hard stuff.
Hello? What the hell do you think schools are for? A place for parents to put their kids in storage during the day while they get on with adult stuff? Schools are part of the process of converting children into adults, otherwise known as parenting.
> Health Care... I want the government to do it.
Why not? Works all over the world.
> We want the government (or some company) to do everything for us.
In a capitalist society we get what we want by exchanging stuff we don't need for stuff we do. What's wrong with that? I don't plough my own fields, I don't take my own trash to landfill, I don't write my own textbooks and I don't ferry the bits to slashdot on my own. What point are you trying to make? That we should all live as individual islands and never interact with anyone else?
What are you talking about? I've seen countless movies from the Bond Movies to the Bourne Ultimatum and it's obvious that anything less than a floor to ceiling screen is a compromise when it comes to catching bad guys.
...are precisely right for maintaining approximately a pint of beer in liquid condition ready to drink. Alas, having the right conditions does not a pint of beer make.
> but he won't have the supporting stories and reading material
I felt that this was a major flaw in Watchmen. Don't get me wrong, I'm grown up enough to read words without pictures, but the supporting stories were the least interesting part of the original graphic novel and really broke the flow of the main story. Losing these would give the movie adaptation something of a headstart.
> The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion
As I've said time and time again. Forensic science is a scam. Second rate statisticians and second rate politicians team up with second rate scientists and second rate TV shows to convince the public that forensic superheroes can detect evidence of any evil crime you commit. It's just a way to keep the people under control.
Slashdot Mirror
That one person who has trouble sending SMS to China thinks that their story is newsworthy, or that the /. editors accepted it?
You make sure you have an inverse and that you associate nicely with the other elements.
There's a big difference between 250GB and 250GB/month.
It might be germane. If the step abiotic->prokaryotic is much more likely than the step prokaryotic->eukaryotic then we'd expect to see precisely the result we see: the first step happening quickly compared to the second step. This would be true even if both steps were a priori incredibly unlikely because we're looking at probabilities conditioned on the fact that eukaryotic life did arise.
That's an interesting but tricky way to argue. After all, what we observe is conditioned on the fact that we are here now and hence that there needs to have been ample time for our own evolution. Frankly, as soon as we veer to close to anthropic arguments I'm no longer as confident as I once was about what arguments are valid. (But check out section 3.6 of Barrow and Tipler.)
We don't know how life arose on Earth but the assembly of complex self-reproducers from simpler compounds doesn't seem like any everyday occurrence. We do know that material can be transferred from Mars to Earth and possibly vice versa. So if we find life on Mars we have three scenarios:
A simple application of Bayes' theorem tells us that the first is the least likely.
What about the late silicon-based tools? I think homo sapiens thrashes Neanderthals to a pulp on that one.
...are more important to our society than the value of contracts then by all means, go ahead and violate your contract. But next time think before you accept money in return for something.
Well given that contemporary Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons, as well as frogs and mushrooms, are all presumed to share a common ancestry, they are all precisely as evolved as each other.
I wish people would stop using the word 'evolved' to mean whatever it is that they would like it to mean and use it for what it actually means.
What is that supposed to demonstrate? That's why they're called *friends*, doh! Friends are the people who tell you you're not fat, you're not ugly, you're not stupid, and that your ideas are cool. Come back when your enemies are worried because your idea is cool.
For God' sake, it's cue. Cue, cue, cue! Get that into your thick skull. You don't queue jokes unless you're writing an asynchronous joke server in Java or something.
Precisely which page of the 1200 pages has something that justifies the existence of the other 1199 pages?
Now a PhD becoming a rock legend on the other hand. That would be news! Becoming a rock legend is not an ordinary everyday occurrence.
They're pretty commonplace these days. Sounds like a plot from The Avengers.
...the closer will be the average scores of men and women. As you go up the ranks of academia you'll find fewer and fewer women - even in mathematics departments of Scandinavian universities that people claim are more equal. (That statistic is easy to check with a web browser BTW) Fewer women are good at the hard stuff.
Your opinions are determined by a sample size of one? You must have flunked real bad.
The funny thing is I can't tell whether you're kidding or not!
Hello? What the hell do you think schools are for? A place for parents to put their kids in storage during the day while they get on with adult stuff? Schools are part of the process of converting children into adults, otherwise known as parenting.
> Health Care... I want the government to do it.
Why not? Works all over the world.
> We want the government (or some company) to do everything for us.
In a capitalist society we get what we want by exchanging stuff we don't need for stuff we do. What's wrong with that? I don't plough my own fields, I don't take my own trash to landfill, I don't write my own textbooks and I don't ferry the bits to slashdot on my own. What point are you trying to make? That we should all live as individual islands and never interact with anyone else?
What are you talking about? I've seen countless movies from the Bond Movies to the Bourne Ultimatum and it's obvious that anything less than a floor to ceiling screen is a compromise when it comes to catching bad guys.
...are precisely right for maintaining approximately a pint of beer in liquid condition ready to drink. Alas, having the right conditions does not a pint of beer make.
I felt that this was a major flaw in Watchmen. Don't get me wrong, I'm grown up enough to read words without pictures, but the supporting stories were the least interesting part of the original graphic novel and really broke the flow of the main story. Losing these would give the movie adaptation something of a headstart.
As I've said time and time again. Forensic science is a scam. Second rate statisticians and second rate politicians team up with second rate scientists and second rate TV shows to convince the public that forensic superheroes can detect evidence of any evil crime you commit. It's just a way to keep the people under control.
And this is relevant how? You've already told us they were distinct people, this doesn't make them more distinct.
In which case when quoting you I need to write
* 'John be [sic] tripping. He always [sic] [[sic]] doin' shit like that.'
Actually, I just copied it from here :-) It seemed to have a curious relevance to the issue in hand.