I'm skeptical: the technology would be revolutionary, and yet he already has a price tag and a short time frame to work with. Sensational stories on slashdot are a dime a dozen... every other week we hear about the latest and greatest physics revolution which fixes the dark matter problem (I have a sneaking sensation these posts are redundant), or about the guy whose going to make heaters by violating quantum mechanics. Not only is this new claim radical and sensational, it's also a bit too polished for a science and technology revolution in the making...
The number of chromosomes is not engraved in stone. In fact, chromosomes break, rejoin and otherwise rearrange at a surprising rate---this is turmed chromosomal instability (a key signature of many cancers). Additionally, chromosome number can change through incorrect segregation at cell division. In general much of evolution is thought to occur through large changes in the structure of the genome (such as gene dulication). It has been shown that bakers yeast has duplicated its entire genome at some point, which could lead to twice as many chromosomes at least in the beginning. See http://www.wi.mit.edu/news/archives/2004/el_0308.h tml. Of course most of such changes are deletirious (as are single gene mutations, the more familiar instrument of evolution) but some of them may confer an evolutionary advantage.
Regarding your complaint regarding barriers to mating with different numbers of chromosomes:
The equine species are good examples here, because they diverged rather recently and yet display rather different chromosone structure. Domestic horses have 32 pairs of chromosomes, Donkeys have 31. They hybridize to give offspring with... yep, you guessed it, 31.5 pairs of chromosomes. But they're sterile, you say, right? Sure, but what about the offspring of wild horses (33 pairs of chromosomes) and domestics (with 32)? They have fertile offsspring with 32.5 pairs of chromosomes. I encourable inquiring minds to explore these issues further on their own... this is not some gaping "hole" in the theory of evolution.
It's troubling when posts on slashdot are modded "5: insightful" for being nothing but ignorant stabs in the dark... at best this is someone who has been puzzled by questions but too lazy to search for answers, and at worst, a sly underhanded attempt to equate Evolution and I.D. In the internet age, curious people (slashdot users, no less!) can quickly find answers to many of their simple questions with a quick internet search. I would recommend http://www.google.com/ and http://www.pubmed.com/. Search there for your conspiracies of scientists hiding holes in "Darwinism".
Wikipedia is a good first resource for topics of enough interest that the articles are widely read (and thus corrected). The funny thing about the article on Seigenthaler (and his incessent wining on the matter) was that it was obvious that the only reason the article wasn't corrected was that he is a relative nobody... not many people look him up on a daily basis, I imagine.
Science articles may be one strength of wikipedia. Another is certainly its mathematics articles. Though sometimes the articles are not as clear as they could possibly be, I have yet to find a mistake in a math article on wikipedia... it is quickly replacing (or at least, joining) Wolfram's Mathworld as a first reference.
I'll wait to see their statistics. Why did they study this gene? It seems likely, for example, that given any group of 300 people, one could find a gene variant correlated with higher (or lower) IQ *in those 300 people*. With 30,000 genes, the statistics could be quite delicate.
Another subject not discussed, apparently, is that a gene could presumably affect rate of development or growth, rather than eventual intelligence (this may be much more plausible, for example). This would manifest itself in 10-year olds, but not, for example, in 30 year olds. Why did they study 10-year olds? It seems like this may be an obvious objection.
If you like risk, and have 4-5 hours to play, try diplomacy. There's no randomness (dice, etc.)... the heart of the game is in negotiations. There are online servers where you can participate in long-term games as well. For example, njudge is a program for Linux/Unix that can adjudicate diplomacy games via email. Apparently, none of the authors of these programs have received copyright complaints.
Slashdot Mirror
It has patented technology! It must be really high-tech and very well designed.
I'm skeptical: the technology would be revolutionary, and yet he already has a price tag and a short time frame to work with. Sensational stories on slashdot are a dime a dozen... every other week we hear about the latest and greatest physics revolution which fixes the dark matter problem (I have a sneaking sensation these posts are redundant), or about the guy whose going to make heaters by violating quantum mechanics. Not only is this new claim radical and sensational, it's also a bit too polished for a science and technology revolution in the making...
trash "certified" email.
It looks like ricoh.de is gone now as well...
Planning on learning some evolutionary theory in the next year or decade I hope?
The number of chromosomes is not engraved in stone. In fact, chromosomes break, rejoin and otherwise rearrange at a surprising rate---this is turmed chromosomal instability (a key signature of many cancers). Additionally, chromosome number can change through incorrect segregation at cell division. In general much of evolution is thought to occur through large changes in the structure of the genome (such as gene dulication). It has been shown that bakers yeast has duplicated its entire genome at some point, which could lead to twice as many chromosomes at least in the beginning. See http://www.wi.mit.edu/news/archives/2004/el_0308.h tml. Of course most of such changes are deletirious (as are single gene mutations, the more familiar instrument of evolution) but some of them may confer an evolutionary advantage.
Regarding your complaint regarding barriers to mating with different numbers of chromosomes:
The equine species are good examples here, because they diverged rather recently and yet display rather different chromosone structure. Domestic horses have 32 pairs of chromosomes, Donkeys have 31. They hybridize to give offspring with... yep, you guessed it, 31.5 pairs of chromosomes. But they're sterile, you say, right? Sure, but what about the offspring of wild horses (33 pairs of chromosomes) and domestics (with 32)? They have fertile offsspring with 32.5 pairs of chromosomes. I encourable inquiring minds to explore these issues further on their own... this is not some gaping "hole" in the theory of evolution.
It's troubling when posts on slashdot are modded "5: insightful" for being nothing but ignorant stabs in the dark... at best this is someone who has been puzzled by questions but too lazy to search for answers, and at worst, a sly underhanded attempt to equate Evolution and I.D. In the internet age, curious people (slashdot users, no less!) can quickly find answers to many of their simple questions with a quick internet search. I would recommend http://www.google.com/ and http://www.pubmed.com/. Search there for your conspiracies of scientists hiding holes in "Darwinism".
Wikipedia is a good first resource for topics of enough interest that the articles are widely read (and thus corrected). The funny thing about the article on Seigenthaler (and his incessent wining on the matter) was that it was obvious that the only reason the article wasn't corrected was that he is a relative nobody... not many people look him up on a daily basis, I imagine. Science articles may be one strength of wikipedia. Another is certainly its mathematics articles. Though sometimes the articles are not as clear as they could possibly be, I have yet to find a mistake in a math article on wikipedia... it is quickly replacing (or at least, joining) Wolfram's Mathworld as a first reference.
I'll wait to see their statistics. Why did they study this gene? It seems likely, for example, that given any group of 300 people, one could find a gene variant correlated with higher (or lower) IQ *in those 300 people*. With 30,000 genes, the statistics could be quite delicate. Another subject not discussed, apparently, is that a gene could presumably affect rate of development or growth, rather than eventual intelligence (this may be much more plausible, for example). This would manifest itself in 10-year olds, but not, for example, in 30 year olds. Why did they study 10-year olds? It seems like this may be an obvious objection.
If you like risk, and have 4-5 hours to play, try diplomacy. There's no randomness (dice, etc.)... the heart of the game is in negotiations. There are online servers where you can participate in long-term games as well. For example, njudge is a program for Linux/Unix that can adjudicate diplomacy games via email. Apparently, none of the authors of these programs have received copyright complaints.