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Science

The Human Genome: More Viruses than Genes? 118

Posted by michael from the meme-expression dept.
jmulvey writes "A new University of Georgia study shows that most of the human genome contains a huge historical record of retroviruses. The study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that viruses were instrumental in the evolution of chimps into humans."
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The Human Genome: More Viruses than Genes? More

The Human Genome: More Viruses than Genes?

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  • Once again my post is going to sound like a troll when its not ment to,but isn't this old news. Now don't get me wrong I love UGA (Go Dawgs!), but I remember reading about this in high school. Maybe the story is that there is so much evidence, and not that its a new idea. End Ramble

    • transposons (Score:4, Informative)

      by tid242 ( 540756 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @08:39AM (#4031976) Homepage
      i don't remember reading about much of the sort in high school, of course you very well could have attended HS more recently than i, or very very likely could have attended a school much better than mine, especially in the science department. but given the conservative nature of high school text driven, in no small part, by the boycotting nature of many 'christian-minded' institutions, i find the latter scenario more probable...

      anyway, the idea of latent viruses remaining in the genome is a rather old idea, most notably for transposons (aka 'jumping genes') which seem to randomly re-arrange themselves within the genomes and 'jump' from one part of a DNA strand to another... also, more recently the idea of viruses actually serving an advantageous purpose for humans has been put forth with the finding of the importance of transposon-like activity in specific instances, such as the HyperVariable region in B-cells (FYI the hypervariable region is a piece of DNA which eventually codes for the binding region of antibodies, which is important for making them recognize foriegn antigens (which will be highly random by nature))... but the point of this paper being that they are/were a driving force for evolution, specifically the evolution of homo which is an interesting, and to the best of my knowledge, new idea.

      -tid242

      • Re:transposons (Score:1, Insightful)

        by young-earth ( 560521 )
        If Christians had their way, the "facts" in bio textbooks (college and HS) would be real facts. Christians like truth.

        For example, Haeckel's embryos, in most every textbook directly or indirectly. In the mid 1800's, Haeckel for whatever reason totally faked some drawings of embryonic development. Within a short time, his university tried and convicted him of fraud. Almost 150 years later, those drawings are still in most textbooks, cited as evidence for evolution. Let's work to get rid of that lie.

        There are many other examples, let's work on getting rid of the just plain proven wrong things in textbooks. That's something that evolutionists and creationists should be able to agree on - getting proven facts in and junk science out.

        • Re:transposons (Score:3, Insightful)

          by PD ( 9577 )
          Almost 150 years later, those drawings are still in most textbooks, cited as evidence for evolution.

          Let's get rid of *your* lie. The idea that embryonic development is evidence for evolution was abandoned by science a very long time ago. I can only believe that you either don't know any better, or you are deliberately making things up.

          Evolution is a fact, that's well established. All debate about evolution is about how it happened.
          • And now, it's time to get rid of my own misunderstanding! (Yum crow is good)

            There are similarities in embryonic development that are shared by all creatures. The fact that the development is similar *can* be taken as a bit of evidence for evolution.

            So, my statement that science abandoned it a long time ago was wrong.

          • Re:transposons (Score:2, Interesting)

            by young-earth ( 560521 )
            I'm very glad you agree that it has been abandoned by responsible scientists. However I think you'd best get educated on what is in the textbooks. In the last two years major college intro bio textbooks have been published and are in heavy use, textbooks that still contain Haeckel's drawings. Do you need the ISBN's for them?
            • Check my other message. Comparitive embryology is considered evidence of evolution. Haeckel's embryos are not regarded as accurate. Modern comparitive embryology ignores Haeckel's drawings, and they do not deserve to be included in books.

              Also, are you sure that the drawings in the textbooks are the ones done by Haeckel, or are they more modern?
          • Evolution is a theory that's well established, and accepted by 99.9% of scientists (according to one of Newsweek's crappy polls.) Newton's law is a theory as well.

            The scientific method is really bad at proving things. It's good at disproving things however. Theories which are continually not disproven (that is, they are "upheld") by experimentation and research seem like they might be correct, but the fact is Science will never know how what happened prehistorically as a fact. All it do is say "there's overwhelming evidence for evolution, so it's probably how come there are people".
            • Gravity is only a theory. So are we justified in thinking that we could just float away from the surface of the earth?

              The word "theory" means an idea that has the heavy and full support of fact and observation.

              And no, evolution is not a theory, it's a fact. The Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is the thing that attempts to explain the fact of evolution.


            • > The scientific method is really bad at proving things. It's good at disproving things however.

              And cutting to the chase, it disproved any literal interpretation of Genesis something like 200 years ago - before anyone had ever heard of the theory of evolution. In the unlikely event that anyone ever disproves the theory of evolution, creationists will merely be back where they were in 1858: already disproven by basic geology. Since then we've added disproofs from biology, cosmology, planetology, archaeology, and probably several other independent fields of enquiry.

              The biggest sign of the rampant ignorance in the creationist camp is that they think it would actually help their position even if they refuted evolution honestly.

              • You and I have had previous discussions on this, but for those who have an open mind and who are willing to consider facts and not dogma, read Robert Gentry's book (get it from a library if you don't want to spend on it) "Creation's Tiny Mystery" [halos.com] about Polonium halos, and why they disprove much of the underlying concepts of ancient-world geology.

                If you're going to respond with a "refutation web site", please don't bother with the one on talkorigins by Brawley, it's been discredited so many times they should really remove it. Same goes for any site that tries to use Odom and Rink as being against Gentry; their letter after their paper clearly shows attempts to use them as refutation is pointless.
        • http://inia.cls.org/~ae/Haeckels_embryos.htm

          "There appears to be no evidence that Haeckel was ever tried for fraud in the Jena university court, much less that he was convicted of it."

          His contemporaries did call him on the inaccuracies in his drawings, and no doubt he was accused of fraud, but he was never 'tried and convicted' of it.

          If you are going to espouse accuracy in textbooks, perhaps you should check the accuracy of your posts.

          It is good to see that at least some textbook makers are replacing these widely used drawings.
          • Here are some references for you about the fraud and the University of Jena:

            Hambin, T. J. 1997. Haeckel's drawings.
            Times (London), 18 Aug. 1997.

            Richardson, M. K., Hanken, J., Selwood, L., Wright, G. M., Richards, R. J., Pieau, C., and Raynaud, A. 1997) Haeckel, embryos, and evolution. Science 280: 983 -984

  • chimps to humans? (Score:5, Informative)

    by HyperbolicParabaloid ( 220184 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @08:13AM (#4031887) Journal
    Just a detail: humans are not theorized to have evolved form chimps. Rather, chimps and humans evolved from a common ancestor.

    • Re:chimps to humans? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by R.Caley ( 126968 )
      It depends on your POV. Some would class humans as a species of chimp, in which case the common ancestor would be a kind fo chimp too.
    • obviously humans did not evolve from modern chimpanzees several million years ago, this would imply that no evolutionary progress (or evolution in general) befell the non-human branch of the tree, this is not a scientific paper, rather a school publication for public affairs: UGA Public Affairs Today [uga.edu] this is just like reading in CNN that, well anything that CNN generally reports is incorrect in detail... but you get the picture :)

      what's important with these types of news releases is the main idea, not the details, if you want details you'll have to read the journal publication...

      -tid242

      • I'm usually not opposed to mass-marketing scientific information by filtering it so that more people can reasonably understand it, but evolution is a clear exception for me.

        My wife used to teach a high school science class, and many of the students (many of whom were admittedly biased against learning evolution because of their religious parents) had such a mass media education in this field that they couldn't separate the "obvious" truth from the mass-marketed "truth". So, in this case, the misinformation that is spread is possibly misleading generations of people. And just think about the impact on those who have never taken a science class, but regularly vote, for instance.

        I think it would be in everybody's best interest if they would drop this metaphor in favor of the truth.

        • yup (Score:1)

          by tid242 ( 540756 )
          my point was not that i agreed in some way that the degradation of quality through its transcription, on the contrary, my last post was to point out that such a dearth of proper information exists between newstand material and journal material (this is not to insinuate either that everything published in journals is necessarily quality information either).

          public ignorance is a BIG, BIG problem in this country (and alas, worldwide), the intellectually 'elite' are advancing farther and further from the general public, i agree, and i feel that there's no plausable nor excusable reason for this, not in this nation, nor in this world, nor for this species...

          my $2*10^(-2)

          -tid242

        • A suggestion:

          Evolution is breeding. As in, breeding programs. As in, something that we've done with horses, wolves, and bunny rabbits. And the bunny rabbit breeding can be done at a school relatively easily.

          The only real difference is that in breeding the traits that humans like are the ones that are brought out, but in the wild the traits that allow a creature to best survive (eat/mate/breed/notgetkilled) are brought out.

          _HISTORICAL_ evolution is the only thing that religion can possibly have a problem with--and by splitting the two, you can ignore the religous debate and focus on learning science.

          (A good short rebuttal to "God created the universe, so you're wrong" might be "if the universe was created, it was created looking a lot older than it is, probably so we could learn about how it would act for the next X years.")

    • Re:chimps to humans? (Score:4, Funny)

      by suss ( 158993 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @11:09AM (#4032884)
      Just a detail: humans are not theorized to have evolved form chimps. Rather, chimps and humans evolved from a common ancestor.

      Well, the scientists are still not sure about Michael and JonKatz concerning that...

  • Viruses Instrumental to Evolution? (Score:3, Funny)

    by $rtbl_this ( 584653 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @08:23AM (#4031919)

    Does this mean that Outlook will eventually evolve into a secure MUA?

    • Does this mean that Outlook will eventually evolve into a secure MUA?

      No; Not for 2 reasons:
      1. Viruses attack the host (i.e. Windows in this case). Think of Outlook as some body orifice through with the virus may gain entry (I'll leave the choice of which orifice up to you).
      2. The article mentions that the evolution is due to a process similar to a game of chess between the virus DNA and the host DNA, albiet on a very large, complicated chessboard.
      As humans, our DNA on its own is quite intelligent, and has been able to counter any move the retrovirus made, keeping some sort of stalemate going for the past couple thousand years.
      Windows, however, altho large and complicated, is not intelligent. It couldn't win a game of chess no matter how hard it tried, let alone winning against anyone who was playing for life.
      Those that lose the game, die. End of story.
    • Yes, and strangely enough, it's called Evolution [ximian.com]. :-)

  • in the same way (Score:2, Funny)

    by tps12 ( 105590 )
    Computer viruses have been instrumental in the evolution of MS Windows.

  • In spite of Microsoft claims to the contrary, open source is helping to cure cancer.

    Sagres Discovery [sagresdiscovery.com] (my employer) takes advantage of naturally occuring retroviruses in mice to identify genes that cause cancer. This isn't novel technology (in fact its been around for nearly 20 years), but Sagres has turned it into a high throughput saturation screen with robotics,open source bioinformatics tools, and clustered Linux computing.

    The Bioinformatics Open Souce Conference [open-bio.org] conference was held in Endmonton, Canada last week. In one of many projects moving towards open source standards and information, the National Cancer Institute announced caBIO [nih.gov], an open API for accessing NCI's comprehensive cancer databases.

    • "So, what you're saying is that open-source is helping to cure cancer in the same way that the pencils the scientists are using are helping to save cancer."

      Let's review your syllogism:

      A pencil is a tool.
      Clinical research generated at a cost of billions and shared in an open and standard fashion is a tool.
      Proven algorithms are tools.

      Therefore, open source bioinformatics data and tools have the same worth as a pencil.

      You remind me of Steve Martin's routine "How to turn a fortune in real estate into $25 in cash!", but he was being funny as a jerk.
      It is unfortunate that some people were given brains when a spinal chord would suffice. - Albert Einstein
      • Of course they're all tools, but then would you rather correspond with us all by writing individual notes to all of us with that pencil or would you prefer to enlighten us all by posting with your computer?

        All tools were not created equal.

        [for proof, check the X-rated video section!]
  • Humans are biological weapons put on earth to infect each other!

    Oh wait...

  • At the moment the best-known retrovirus is HIV (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dpilot ( 134227 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @10:48AM (#4032731) Homepage Journal
    So what is HIV doing to human evolution?

    * In the Darwin's Radio sense, perhaps our genes have looked at our actions, and decided, "It's time for us to go."

    * In a punctuated equillibrium sense, I've always heard that evolution through natural selection *really* kicks in when you have 90%-type mortalities. Do we know for sure that the death rate from AIDS is 100%? How about the "sufficient to procreate" rate? Left completely unchecked, would AIDS kill off the human race, or would a tiny fraction of us evolve past it, and their descendents inherit the Earth?
    • So what is HIV doing to human evolution?

      One of our characteristics as humans is that we try to assign narratives to everything. This is a great thing because it forces us to come up with theories and then through discussion refine them. But sometimes there isn't a reason, as with random processes like evolution. You didn't say there was a reason for HIV, so I won't belabor the point.

      It's still a good question, it looks like it has redirected some of the hive's mind to figuring out retro-viruses and also to figuring out biological data storage and manufacturing devices (DNA & RNA). This is probably better use of medical researchers than a random trial and error attack on cancer.

      As far as biological evolution, this will happen to an extent. But not so much really, remember the plague, black death? Well less than 5% of Europeans has any immunity. We discovered hand washing and rat control before it really reworked the genome. Condoms and medicine will do the same for HIV.

      Many large cats do have a HIV like virus that once decimated their population and for the last 100,000 years have evolved to fight it off, though with a dimished life span. We're not gonna wait that long for a solution...
      • > But sometimes there isn't a reason, as with random processes like evolution. You didn't say there was a reason for HIV, so I won't belabor the point.

        I wasn't attempting to assign or invoke any sort of reason, only wondering about long-term effects. Even though I later mentioned Darwin's Radio I wasn't meaning to wander out on that branch.

        > We discovered hand washing and rat control before it really reworked the genome. Condoms and medicine will do the same for HIV.

        So maybe HIV will really alter our perception and application of religion and some political systems. Right now it appears that religious conservatism is the greatest obstacle proper education about sex and HIV risks, and promoting the use of condoms. South Africa has the highest proportion of AIDS, and at least part of the reason is/was political. The government set up a situation with residence in one area, and jobs in another. Workers were on a weekly/monthly commute, and AIDS spread like wildfire through the prostitutes.

        So maybe religious and political opinions will need to be the biggest changes.

        > We're not gonna wait that long for a solution...

        I have an ugly feeling that at some point, social-unrest-driven solutions are going to be forced on us, and some of them will be decidedly sub-optimal. Unfortunately, we had time to develop better solutions, and squandered it because of religious/political reasons.
        • Right now it appears that religious conservatism is the greatest obstacle proper education about sex and HIV risks

          Unfortunately, we had time to develop better solutions, and squandered it because of religious/political reasons.

          I really don't think it makes sense to link politics and religion in regards to this problem. Politics more or less ignores HIV/AIDS and as a result it spreads. Religion did not need to respond any differently than it already was since it was already promoting the most effective AIDS control possible (abstinence).

          And if you're thinking about making an argument that religion stifles open talk about sex, you might want to consider whether you are basing your opinion on the Christian church as it exists in the Western world or 'religion' as a whole.


          Jesus: Who was his neighbor? Some Dude: The man who helped him. Jesus: Go and do likewise.
      • As far as biological evolution, this will happen to an extent. But not so much really, remember the plague, black death? Well less than 5% of Europeans has any immunity. We discovered hand washing and rat control before it really reworked the genome. Condoms and medicine will do the same for HIV.

        Since memes evolve in a Lamarkian fashion, and can be exchanged many times over the course of one host's lifespam, they're much more volatile than biological elements. So it seems more likely that we'll learn how to avoid or cure HIV through "technological means" (ie, using a condom, or (in the previous Black Plague example) washing your hands).

        I believe there are today some cases where people infected with HIV do not ever experience any symptoms (namely, AIDS). If memetic evolution failed, that phenotype would pick up the slack, though of course a lot more people would die.
      • A lot of human illnesses stem from our close proximity to animals. If I recall, the flu virus is supposed to have originally affected horses (or is it pigs? it doesn't matter for the example), and then the virus eventually evolved to affect humans, because we were always around the horses, and presented an opportunity for the virus to adapt to a new enviroment (us).

        Your mentioning the feline "HIV" makes me wonder if maybe the AIDS shouldn't be blamed on monkeys, but on cats.

        On an unrelated note, I've often wondered if there are any viruses out there that are good for us, sort of like the symbiotic bacteria in our stomaches that help us digest, and that help yogurt marketeers. Instead of making one sick, wouldn't it be cool if there was a virus you could catch that made you healthier.

        And as a side note, I believe most people ,myself included, are mischaracterizing the nature of viruses affect on evolution as explained by the researchers. It's not that the viruses cause any benign change per se, but that the body mutates to defend against them, thus increasing complexity of the organism.

        Weird stuff when you consider that this is delving into the nature of life itself.

        What am I, half French, half Russian, one quarter virus? (Yes that adds up to more than one, they're not mutually exclusive sets.)

        And it's kind of interesting that people aren't talking about the ramifications of this idea regarding computer viruses.

        Does the existance of computer viruses ultimately benefit us, by forcing the development (in this case entirely conscious, as opposed to biological evolution) of more complex computer systems.
        • On an unrelated note, I've often wondered if there are any viruses out there that are good for us

          It has often been speculated that mitrocondria, the "energy factories" of the cell are in fact symbiotes. Mitrocondria even have their own DNA.

          • > It has often been speculated that mitrocondria, the "energy factories" of the cell are in fact symbiotes. Mitrocondria even have their own DNA

            It has also been speculated that Midichlorians, which create a different kind of energy, are also symbiotes.

            Not to mention a lame cop-out explanation that ruined a once-interesting spiritual component to the Force.

    • I've always heard that evolution through natural selection *really* kicks in when you have 90%-type mortalities. Do we know for sure that the death rate from AIDS is 100%?

      The mortality rate for AIDS (90% vs. 100%) is not issue. For natural selection to be a strong force, it matters how many people in the population are effected by AIDS compared to the frequency of a gene for immunity. If only 5% of the population is immune to AIDS, but <5% of the population has HIV, natural selection won't be strong enough to favor the gene for immunity.

    • The mortality rate of AIDS even without treatment is not 100%. It's really close, but there are cases of people who have had HIV for a long, long time and not shown symptoms. There are other cases of prostitutes who have not caught HIV even though they really should have, implying that some people are immune to HIV and others are immune to AIDS.
      AIDS won't wipe out humans, certainly. It's just not THAT deadly. It's still a tragic disease that deserves a lot of funding to find a cure, but it's not an extinction event.

    • a link [virusmyth.net] to some material on whether the widely-spread convention that there is a retrovirus called HIV that causes AIDS is true.

      a quote from that site :

      "If there is evidence that HIV causes AIDS, there should be scientific documents which either singly or collectively demonstrate that fact, at least with a high probability. There is no such document."

      Dr. Kary Mullis, Biochemist, 1993 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

      this page [virusmyth.net] on the site links to the best introductory articles on the 'virus myth'

      an excerpt from one of the articles on the site

      The response to the first major critique of the HIV theory, by Dr Peter Duesberg, professor of molecular biology at the University of California at Berkeley, was bewilderment, followed by fury. Duesberg had been voted Californian Scientist of the Year for his discoveries in the field of retroviruses (of which HIV is supposed to be one). He argued in 1987 that HIV could not be doing the damage attributed to it, because it was so difficult to find in the body, even in a person dying of AIDS. He postulated that an explosion in the use of recreational drugs during the 1970s was probably the main cause of AIDS. He was first ignored and then pilloried for persisting with his views. He lost a $ 350,000 "outstanding investigator" award and became an embarrassment to his university, which, while unable to fire him, reduced him to chairing its annual picnic committee.

      The past 10 years have shown Duesberg to have been right on several counts. He stated that HIV could not kill immune cells, that AIDS would not become a heterosexual epidemic and that the anti-viral drug AZT would kill rather than cure. On all three issues, the evidence has gone his way.

      note to moderators : please note that the assertions against the conventional thinking on HIV -> AIDS are being made by respected scientists as shown in the above two excerpts. This comment is not made as flamebait or as a troll. The ideal of science is informed debate, not willful dismissal of dissenting opinion.

      • You bring up an interesting point, but its pretty well established that Duesberg & other "non-retroviral" theorists are wrong on many counts here.

        First of all, Duesberg's claim that "poverty, malnutrition and parasitic and tropical diseases" cause AIDS in third world populations, while "recreational drugs, irradiation and AZT" and nutrition are responsible for the syndrome in the Western world are patently false -- disproven repeatedly. AZT and other anti-retrovirals have been shown to increase lifespan and decrease symptomatology in AIDS patients. HIV is a heterosexual epidemic in many places, and viral loads do seem to correlate with diminished T-cell numbers.

        Other "non-viral" theories of AIDS put forth, such as Papadopoulos-Eleopoulos' "oxidizing agent" theory have been equally disproven. It seems that, if there is an viable, alternative theory to the retroviral HIV of AIDS, nobody has presented it yet.

        Secondly, it would be very difficult to demonstrate that the retroviral HIV theory of AIDS completely fulfills all the requirements of Koch's postulate in a human model (in fact, it would be an immoral and unethical act to test it this way), but the evidence is pretty strong in the support of it. People who show no evidence of HIV do not have AIDS (although similar syndromes exist). As far as I know, all people with AIDS have been shown to have HIV infection. Furthermore, people who have had AIDS and have begun antiretroviral therapy have shown dramatic regression of symptoms, while no other therapies (directed or not) seem to be effective.

        The "non-viral" people -- Duesberg supporters in particular -- tend to argue against strawmen, using old data, and demanding that the HIV camp disprove negatives.

        • Well my parent comment has already been modded down, so my hopes for an intelligent discussion of whether HIV exists and causes AIDS seem to be rapidly diminishing.

          Thankyou for your even-toned reply. However, I do not agree with your line of reasoning. You essentially seem to be saying that the HIV theory dissident's claims have been disproven. You state this without mentioning or linking to any papers along these lines. From my point of view the dissidents seem to have been ignored rather than defeated.

          Further, it seems to me that the burden of proof lies with the proponents of the HIV causes AIDS theory. This is the general nature of scientific debate - to substantiate a positive claim against negative (sceptical) arguments rather than the other way around.

          Finally there are now a large number of members of the scientific community expressing some level of scepticism about the HIV causes AIDS hypothesis. Some of the major dissidents include :

          Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein, who held a MacArthur Prize fellowship from 1981 to 1986, is associate professor of physiology at Michigan State University

          Dr. Gordon Stewart is professor emeritus of public health at Glasgow University, and a former WHO adviser on AIDS.

          Dr. Alfred Hässig, (1921-1999) was professor emeritus in immunology at the University of Bern, Director of the Swiss Red Cross Transfusion Service, and President of the Board of Trustees of the International Society of Blood Transfusion. With colleagues he formed the Study Group for Nutrition and Immunity.

          Dr. Richard Strohman is professor emeritus in molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley.

          Dr. Etienne de Harven is emeritus professor of pathology, University of Toronto. He worked in electron microscopy primarily on the ultrastructure of retroviruses throughout his professional career of 25 years at the Sloan Kettering Institute in New York and 13 years at the University of Toronto.

          Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, a New York physician and one of the first AIDS researchers, has been questioning the HIV-AIDS hypothesis.

          The German virologist Dr. Stefan Lanka.

          (excerpted from the whistleblowers page [virusmyth.net]on the virus myth website)

          Further, here is a petition [virusmyth.net]questioning the basis of the HIV hypothesis - the present number of signatures is more than 5500 - you can view the list and see that many of these people are established scientists.

          To me it seems very strange that people from within the scientific establishment would be questioning common dogma and risking a great deal of mainstream credibility and their own financial security without their holding a genuinely sceptical position - it comes down to a question of motive and i can see no other reason for such people to 'stand out in the cold' except for a personal motivation to uphold rigour and independent thinking in science

          • I'm perfectly willing to have a rational discussion about this with anyone, and I'm perfectly willing to listen to skepticism -- that's what makes good science happen. However, just giving names and stating beliefs isn't a persuasive argument. You've given me no substantive reason to doubt what I currently believe.

            I know of Duesberg and read his papers on this matter, and I don't agree with his conclusions. I know of Mullins, and think he's a genius, but even a genius isn't infallible. In fact, I think it ironic that his own PCR has disproven one of Duesberg's famous early claims: that HIV is undetectable in some AIDS patients.

            Listing names isn't convincing without a reason behind those folks' beliefs. I can look at those names, and still not have any idea why they would be skeptical of the retroviral hypothesis. You list 5,500 names but I expect that 550,000 (or more) scientifically trained folk would take the other side of the argument. Names don't mean anything in good science, nor do numbers. I don't even know if those names are real. Facts and hypothesis-testing do mean something, for they can be tested and put through trials.

            I've stated in my prior post why I think Duesberg and others who deny the retroviral theory are wrong. I've stated why I think HIV comes very, very close to fulfilling Koch's postulate (even though we'er dealing with a viral agent, not a bacterial one, here). I've pointed out that almost everything Duesberg has said initially about HIV/AIDS turned out to be untrue. I can even direct you to a relatively recent paper here [aegis.com] that gives a good basic overview why HIV seems to fit the bill as the causative agent for AIDS.

            So far, nothing I've seen has conflicted with those points I made, and until they do, I really have no reason to question the HIV/retroviral theory of AIDS causation...And I have to wonder the specifics behind why you do.

            • well i notice from the amber light next to yr name that i have now made yr lists of foes - the first time anyone on slashdot has made me one - that's fine by me, and of course you have the right to do so, however you seem by yr action to be continuing the long held practice of ignoring dissent on the HIV causes AIDS hypothesis - i.e. by my speaking out i am now on yr ignore list

              thankyou for linking to a paper - i will have a look at it - however i do not feel i have the expertise necessary to judge it's validity - and this is why i listed the names of some fairly respected scientists in my previous comment - these are obviously people who do have the expertise and who are questioning the hypothesis - however i have never heard this mentioned in the mainstream media - like you, the media have set their filters to 'ignore' - their dissent may or may not be good science - but why is the dissent not even acknowledged? - very few people even know that there is dissent from credible scientists on this issue and this is what i wanted to bring to people's attention by my post

              the website [virusmyth.net]i linked to in my first post has a large repository of scientific papers contesting the HIV->AIDS hypothesis including at least one paper for every name that i listed in my second post - they are all easily accesible from the whistleblowers page from which i excerpted my list - i imagined that people would go directly to the source rather than expect me to try to paraphrase their arguments - i wonder whether you yrself visited the site?

              in relation to the list of 5500 names - these are listed prominently on the major HIV->AIDS dissident page on the web - I would imagine that legal action would have quickly ensured removal of the names of any people who were being wrongly touted as sceptics of the HIV->AIDS hypothesis

              my position on the HIV->AIDS hypothesis is simply a sceptical one - in the late 70's and early 80's a syndrome was documented as aquired immune deficiency syndrome - several years later an assertion was put forward that a retrovirus had been found and was the cause of the syndrome - the website i linked to has the papers of highly eminent people questioning both of these claims - science is all about questioning 'common sense' assumptions - so why have these people been continually left out of the debate? - indeed there has been no debate as mostly they have struggled to be published or have coverage in the mainstream media

              i wish you luck in a medical profession that due to massive abuse of power and an increasingly marked desire to enter the pay of the drug companies is rapidly losing the trust and confidence of the common people

              finally i'll end with a quote from a fellow named hippocrates - he doesn't seem to have much to say about whether HIV causes AIDS or not - but he does seem to have some commentary on the course that the mainstream medical community has followed in treating the syndrome :

              I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.
              I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel;

              • ok i've now had a brief look at the paper you linked to - it's by tim teeter RN (RN = registered nurse) - is this really the best you can do? - i give you papers by people with 20+ years in the exact field of virology or nobel scientists in related fields and you come back with a paper by a registered nurse?!! - furthermore not even a disinterested party but a member of the AIDS lobby group - i quote - Tim Teeter is Associate Director of Treatment Support and Publications at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. - my scepticism only grows...

                ok some brief responses to material from the paper

                AIDS is defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as the presence of a positive HIV antibody test and one or more of the illnesses known as opportunistic infections (OIs) or a CD4 cell count below 200 cells/mm3.

                so even though AIDS was on the scene first it appears to have now been redefined to include a positive result to the 'HIV antibody test' - summary : something is documented as Acquired Immunde Deficiency Syndrome - a hypothesis is put forward that this is caused by something called HIV amd all dissenting opinion is crushed - the originally defined AIDS is redefined in terms of the later 'discovered' HIV - isn't this a gross breach of empiricism?

                this is the very first sentence - however two paragraphs down the author flatly contradicts his own definition of AIDS i.e. requiring a positive result to the 'HIV' test

                The vast majority of people with AIDS in resource-poor countries have not had an HIV antibody test; even in developed countries, not all people with AIDS have had viral load tests. Those who have had viral load tests showing nondetectable virus generally have no additional tests to confirm the presence of HIV genetic material.

                i won't go on - as i said before the burden of proof is on the originators of a theory and not on the sceptics - this paper you've given me is doing a very bad job of convincing me with major logical inconsitencies in it's first three paragraphs

                • That's not "the best I can do", but since you said you weren't an expert in the field, I would link a basic review. The paper was an OVERVIEW and not a paper with original work. Did you actually try and read it? The papers that you originally cited were PROVEN WRONG. The original papers that contradict your "nobel prize winners" and "virologist" are cited in the article.

                  And, anyway, Teeter's credentials are as valid as the ones you've brought up with your names -- moreso since he's probably done more AIDS work than the three you mentioned.

                  Do you have any argument with the actual TEXT of the paper? Howabout the citations in it -- do you doubt the research done? Or are you just making an ad hominem attack?

                  Do you want me to give you a bibliography of papers backing up the belief that HIV causes AIDS? Would you read them and understand them if I did?
              • 1) I put you as a "foe" because I'm starting to question if you may be a troll, just so I remember who you are. I'm still giving this whole thing the benefit of the doubt. I have not "filtered" your messages, either.

                2) As I've stated in my prior posts, I don't ignore contrarian views, but merely ask for evidence/arguments. Everything I've read on virusmyth.net seems to be wrong or outdated. There is frequent mention of many scientists' "doubt", but every bit of reason for doubt that I've seen turns out to be fallacious.

                Its not that the scientific community ignored Duesberg's and other views on AIDS, nor were they left out of the debate. It is merely that many of these alternative views have been examined, tested, and discarded...meanwhile, the conventional HIV/retroviral theory has yet to be reliably contradicted -- that's how science is supposed to work: you eliminate postulates that turn out to have no real merit or evidence.

                3) I find it hard to understand why you keep bringing up the 5,500 names, and the "prestigious scientists" -- if you are so skeptical, names should mean nothing to you, especially because far more prestigious names are connected to the conventional HIV/retroviral theory. You say you're skeptical of 'establishment' medicine, but you also say you haven't studied the question enough to have a basis for this skepticism. You just trade one set of experts for another?

                Anyway, I doubt anyone has actually gone through all 5,500 names for any reason. I don't know if any of them are real. For all I know, my name might be on there, since I rarely check to see where my name has been published. That's really not the point. The point is that science isn't like an opinion poll, where a loud enough voice gains validity. If somebody, anybody from that list could cite valid evidence why the retroviral/HIV theory is wrong, or come up with a valid alternative, they'd be published in a second, and the NIH would be carting buckets of money to them, while Act Up! would be throwing tons of support to them, too. The fact is, there is no such evidence, there is no such alternative theory.

                4) With regard to the Oath...well, don't get me started. Antiretrovirals are NOT intended as poisons, nor have they been shown to act that way towards AIDS patients. They prolong life. You might as well say chemotherapy is "deadly medicine" as well, too.

                Furthermore, the Oath (as originally written)invokes the god Apollo (among others), prohibits doctors from performing surgeries, disallows abortion, and disavows physician-assisted suicide. I'd like to think that medicine has progressed beyond that archaic stage, and the original is not the oath that I took.

                • in response to yr point 2

                  Its not that the scientific community ignored Duesberg's and other views on AIDS, nor were they left out of the debate.

                  well my experience and those of the general public around me is that they were left out of the debate - despite being a sceptic from the early days of the AIDS story i had never heard that emminent scientists were also sceptical of the theory through the mainstream media - it was never reported - even now with the fact of the president of south africa's scepticism difficult to ignore, media reports on the president's stance never in my experience mention support from major western scientists - i only discovered the virus myth page after hearing an interview with eleni papadopoulos on an independent community radio station and then doing a web search on her name

                  i can imagine the mainstream media's rationalisation of this blackout goes something like this - there's this awful thing called AIDS, some of our clever scientists tell us that it's caused by a retrovirus they call HIV - some other clever scientists are indicating some sceptisism about HIV being the cause of AIDS - but really we can't report this because it's going to be hard enough to get the great unwashed public to perform safe sex and if we let them know that there's some doubt in the scientific community then our message will not be listened to

                  maybe you agree with this rationalisation - i certainly do not as it is not how science is meant to be done - and risks the danger that a truly massive crime against humanity may have been practised by feeding people highly toxic drugs on the basis of a flawed hypothesis that was not allowed to be examined with due scientific rigour - you do not seem to appear to realise that instead of a proper scientific culture we live in what could better be described as a 'church of science' culture where scientific dogma is handed down from on high and the media blindly parrots this dogma from the established 'experts'

                  with respect to your 3rd point - i do not keep on bringing up the 5500 names - i simply responded to a query in yr reply, rather than bringing it up again independently - now as to your assertion that the names may be false i find this rather implausible as it would be giving the other camp a very big stick with which to be beaten as the names are easily checked - i myself just did a web search on three of the names i randomly extracted from the top of the list - they are :

                  Steven Jonas, M.D.
                  Hansueli Albonico, M.D.
                  Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.

                  all three returned numerous hits from google searches relevant to them being experts in the AIDS domain of knowledge - please check for yrself - again i assert that if their names were being used without their permission they would rapidly have been withdrawn from the site and/or the website's owners heavily sued

                  you do not seem to understand my reason for using these people's names as i have previously explained it - it goes back to a policeman's logic - understanding people's motives - in a world where vast amounts of funding and prestige are given to members of the scientific and medical establishment who subscribe to the established theory it makes little sense for members of this same community to attack the conventional thinking - if a large number are doing so then this suggests to me that there may indeed be some substance behind their claims - it does not convince me, nor should it convince others, however it should serve to inculcate some level of scepticism in people with non-expertise if it is allowed to be reported

                  further on this point i find your assertion that people showing dissenting opinions will be showered with money highly naive or disingenuous in the extreme - look at the example of peter duesberg which i quoted in my first comment who had exactly the opposite experience

                  finally on point four i did not quote the whole oath in full - i quoted the part that seems readily ignored by the medical establishment and yet to me still seems to be a very noble and necessary ideal to hold on to - the idea of 'first, do no harm' - and yes i do consider chemotherapy 'deadly medicine' - how could anyone not?

                  • 1) Duesberg was listened to, and his ideas were proven wrong. His statements on HIV and AIDS causation have almost universally been shown to be false. He has not been "showered with money" or given media attention because his theories on AIDS are repeatedly proven incorrect.

                    2) When AIDS was initially reported, there was plenty of confusion in the media. People were linking it to being Haitian, with being gay, with living on the coasts of the US...and a dozen other things.

                    3) None of the people you mentioned seem to have anything to do with AIDS research. None of them has anything published in medical journals about such research. They don't appear to have training in areas like molecular biology or virology (one is a semiotician and a toxicologist!?!). They seem to have no stated theories on why AIDS takes place, or why HIV could not be the causative agent for AIDS. I have no reason to think they are "experts" on AIDS in any way.

                    4) 5,500 random people with some scientific training is not a significant number when compared with the number of experts who espouse the retroviral theory. Additionally, I never asserted that the names on your list were fake or forged, merely that they could be, and that it was entirely irrelevent.

                    5) Your classification of antiretrovirals as "extremely toxic drugs" is disingenuous and smells of trolling. This is equally true of your statement on chemotherapy, and your suggestion that the medical establishment is espousing harming patients.

                    6) Your glossing over of activist groups like Act Up! or GMHC that would love to find a cover-up in AIDS research only further classifies your posts as trolling.

                    I'm wasting to much time on this -- you don't want to learn enough about the subject to make an informed decision, but you doubt what is almost universally accepted among experts to be true. You say you don't trust people just because their deemed "experts", but you are going to consider alternative theories to the retroviral postulate because the people questioning it are experts?

                    • yes i too am wasting too much time on this discussion - yr level of discussion is disappointing me and you are now repeatedly accusing me of being a troll when yr behaviour is more amenable to such an accusation

                      to wit : the three names i pulled out of this list at random according to you don't "seem to have anything to do with AIDS research. None of them has anything published in medical journals about such research. "

                      after a web search i found the following information from pages at or near the top of the returned google searches

                      STEVEN JONAS, M.D., M.P.H., M.S.professor of preventive medicine at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, has written eight books of his own and edited/co-authored another ten, on personal health promotion, health policy, and national politics. He has also published over 100 professional articles and book reviews, and numerous popular articles on the same subjects. He is editor of the Springer Publishing Company Series on Medical Education, an associate editor of Preventive Medicine, and a member of the editorial boards of several other professional journals in health promotion/disease prevention. A Fellow of the American College of Preventive Medicine, the New York Academy of Medicine and the American Public Health Association

                      so he does not seem to be a specialist, but he does however seem to be a highly respected generalist as he sits on a number of editorial boatds and would seem to be well equipped to understand and appraise the scientific arguments

                      the second person is harder to search on being of swiss background - however here are the names of two papers he has published directly on HIV/AIDS

                      Albonico, H. (1991a) Lichtblicke zum zweiten Jahrzehnt in der AIDS-Forschung. Schweizerische Ærztezeitung 72: 379-380.

                      Albonico, H. (1991b) Relativierung des HIV-Dogmas-Ein Beitrag zur Erweiterten Sicht von AIDS. Pädagogische Arbeitsstelle, Dortmund

                      the third person is yes you are correct an expert on toxicology - he is listed on the faculty of the joint graduate program in toxicology at rutgers university as

                      Sungchul Ji: Associate Professor of Pharmacy, CP; Ph. D. SUNY (Albany).

                      contrary to your labelling me as a troll for describing the drugs used as highly toxic there seems to be little doubt that drugs such as AZT are heavily toxic - i cannot understand your attempting to deny this, it is readily admitted by the proponents of the drug treatment - and so the views of an expert on toxicology would seem to be highly relevant to a debate on the conventional treatment of AIDS with highly toxic drugs

                      your point about there being a great deal of debate when AIDS was discovered sidesteps the conspicous lack of debate and rapid development of hegemony over the HIV hypothesis when it was first asserted several years after the early debate on AIDS

                      finally you repeatedly claim that the dissidents views have been proven incorrect however the best evidence of these claims that you have offered me is a paper by a registered nurse and member of the AIDS lobby (as i responded in an earlier comment, it is almost laughable againt the large repository of papers i offered you by emminent experts and the odd nobel laureate)

                      you still do not seem to understand that the size of a majority is largely irrelevant - it is very easy and usually the safest option to subscribe to groupthink - while the size and constition of a minority is extremely important, and this is why i detailed the significant number of well-credentialled dissidents to the hypothesis who are happy to publicly express their scepticism when it is clearly not in their own best personal interest to do so

                      anyway we'll consider the discussion closed - i thank you for yr input, however the interchange seems only to have hardened both of our positions - i guess we will have to leave it for time to tell the eventual answer - an answer which will show the death of millions of people was caused by a mysterious virus unlike all viruses discovered before or perhaps the alternative possibility - that millions of people were poisonously treated by a medical establishment that long ago discarded the ancient hippocratic axiom of first, do no harm

  • This is good news. (Score:3)

    by Mt._Honkey ( 514673 ) on Thursday August 08, 2002 @10:53AM (#4032769)
    If you haven't, read the article. It says that these retroviruses have been a significant driving force for evolution.

    Some people claim that evolution has stopped in humans, but this shows us that maybe it hasn't. Maybe through more retroviruses getting into the system, and this "giant game of chess" being played in our DNA, we will continue to evolve. For better or for worse, I don't know, but I see it as a major chance for improvement.

    • Re:This is good news. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I'm kind of one of those people that believe that human evolution has stopped. One key component to evolution is "selective pressure" so that poor genes kill you off before you breed (or breed a lot). In modern human society we protect the weak so that almost everyone gets a chance to breed. If you watch Jerry Springer you'll start to wonder if only the crap is breeding while the rest of us are too busy. 50 years ago Down Syndrome, a pretty significant genetic anomaly, killed people while they were children. Today people with down syndrome are living long lives. Other genetic disorders are getting the same help from our technological evolution. I'm not trying to get all Hitler-ish on society because I'd be on the elimination list for genetic problems, but until we start a massive selective breeding program (which isn't going to happen) or allow technology to advance without excessive laws based on superstitions, our genome is going to be filled with cruft.

      An acquaintance of my family was told by a genetic councilor that if she and her husband had children there was an extremely high probability of the child having spina bifida [dictionary.com], but they decided that this expert whom they sought out was full of crap and had a kid anyway. "Surprize!" the kid has it and is severly disabled and will always need lots of medical care and will never be able to have a job due to mental and physical disabilities that border on a vegatative state. Thus two people that could have given an adopted child a good life, will not be able to care for or afford another child because of the one they decided to have despite the risks. We can't stop people from breeding haphazardly so we need to be able to fix inherited "mistakes" before or after birth and we're not going to be able to do that if we put legislation in the way of every new potential advancement because we might be "playing god." Face it we've been playing god for 1000s of years. We "invented" dogs, horses, cows, corn, and tons of other species via selective breeding and recently via direct genetic manipulations (ie Spider-goats and insulin producing bacteria).

      So although I think that this reseach and its findings are amazing, I don't think that it will do much to further evolve the human species since we've all but removed ourselves from any selective pressures.

      - One American that's pissed about the poor Math and Science educational requirements and ever decreasing separation of church and state.
      • Even if they live long lives, unless these congenitally deformed people reproduced as much as everyone else, they're being selected out.
      • key component to evolution is "selective pressure"
        Yes.

        so that poor genes kill you off before you breed
        Not necessary.

        Do some people die for various reasons before having children? Yes.
        Are any of these causes of death influenced by their genes? Yes.

        Do some people have more children than others? Yes.
        Is this influenced by their genes? Yes.

        Evolution still occurs. Sometimes it is just more subtle than starvation due to physical defect.

        -
    • Some people claim that evolution has stopped in humans
      I think that it hasen't stopped. For example, more and more are becoming homosexual. I don't know the natural reason but I guess it's just because it's now cool/accepted to be gay.
      Will be an interresting population to look at to verify if natural selection still exists for humans
      • I don't know if that was a troll or not, but I'm going to respond anyway.

        First, what makes you think that more people are becoming gay? And second, that can't be an evolutionary change. IF homosexuality is geneticly determined, it seems to me that it would be quickly rooted out and would vanish inside a generation. Why? Becuase gay people don't have kids (well, the vast majority). In order for a genetic alteration to stick around, the carrier has to reproduce.

        In ancient Greece, homosexuality was encouraged, because it kept you a 'technical' virgin. A HUGE chunk of the population became homosexual. Whether or not they stayed that way their whole lives, I don't know.
        Will be an interresting population to look at to verify if natural selection still exists for humans
        Uh... how could it not in this case. Since they don't have kids, they don't pass on any genes (even your hypothetical "gay" gene), so it ends. I think that this simple fact is a good argument against homosexuality being genetic.

        Mandatory quote form Hot Shots Part Deux:
        They've taken a vow of celebecy, like their fathers before them...
        • Since they don't have kids, they don't pass on any genes (even your hypothetical "gay" gene), so it ends.
          That's the point ;-)
          And I think you are right about the non-genetic nature. So are we forced to conclude that homosexuality (true ones, not Greece virgins) is a disease? If it is true we should try to cure them instead. Same thing as for paedophiles then I guess. A kind of disorder?
          • are we forced to conclude that homosexuality (true ones, not Greece virgins) is a disease? If it is true we should try to cure them instead/
            Before you go and say that it needs to be cured, you have to ask if it is a bad thing. I don't know if it is or not, but the only gay people I know seem to be happy, so why mess with it?

      • For example, more and more are becoming homosexual.

        We don't know that. There have never been any reliable statistics, now or at any point in the past (whether the recent past or the distant past) on just how many people are homosexual.

        You may very well be right, but there is no way that we can actually know that.

  • Okay, IANAB (I am not a biologist) The mitochondria (essentially the power plants of our cells) were actually an origionally independent life form. Sometime very early in our evolution they found themselves inside our cells and have been integrated in as a necessary part. I could be mistaken but I believe they are essentially inherited purely from the mother as they just stick with the egg and the number coming in with the sperm is trivial. They also have their own DNA.
    • Actually the number coming from a sperm is not just trivial, it's nothing. The mitochondria in sperm are all in the tail, and are never absorbed by the egg. This was the basis for the tracing of the "Genetic Eve" through mitochondrial DNA.

      Anybody know if mitochondrial DNA is included in the Human Genome Project?

    • That's basically true, but unrelated. The mitochondria are similar to bacteria, not viruses.
      And by very early, we're talking about our single celled anaerobic ancestors.
  • It goes against the first and second laws of thermo-dynamics and is still a theory, and unproven in these hundred or so years since its inception.

    http://www.wiebefamily.org/e.htm
    http://www.pat hlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Index.ht m


    • > It goes against the first and second laws of thermo-dynamics

      This has never been demonstrated, or even argued well, in spite of the fact that creationists have been appealing to it for decades. (Quick, taftman - can you even tell us what units are relevant to the 2LoT without looking it up? Hint: it it's a law of thermodynamics. It doesn't say a heck of a lot about speciation.)

      > and is still a theory

      As is atomic theory and electromagnetic theory and the theory of gravity and the theory of relativity and all the other big stuff that gives shape to our knowledge in the empirical sciences. Don't confuse a scientific theory with the conversational use of the term as a synonym for "wild ass guess". "Theory" is as high as you can go in the empirical sciences; once a theory, always a theory - unless refuted. So yes, the theory of evolution is still a theory, since no one has come close to refuting it. (Indeed, the supporting evidence keeps pouring in.)

      > and unproven

      We don't prove things in the empirical sciences. (As the saying goes, "Proof is for mathematicians, alchohol, and gunpowder.")

      > in these hundred or so years since its inception.

      143 years since the first publication on the topic, if I subtract correctly. That's 143 years of continual attempts by creationists to refute it, but instead of going away it is now better established than ever.

      You may want to get yourself a bit better informed on these topics before posting on them again, if you don't like to come off sounding like a fool in public.

      • I'm no scientist, I read tons of articles on evolution, even from their point of view.

        It seems like you people are more interested in making me look bad then discussing the points.

        As I understand it, its the law of gravity, but I may be wrong, i'm no scientist.

        I was hoping for intellegent conversation on this topic, so that I can further understand what drives your passion about evolution, you seem challenged and attacked when I mention anything ill about it, thats odd.

        We are both seeking truth, I am coming from the faith and biblical angle, and you are coming from the humanist angle and science is our common element.

        bless you
        - rob


        • > As I understand it, its the law of gravity, but I may be wrong, i'm no scientist.

          If by "it" you mean the 2LoT, then no, it's about limits on our ability to extract useful work from heat. Since you say you're no scientist, please be informed that the 2LoT tells us nothing useful about evolution, and the people you heard that argument from don't understand it any more than you do. You would do well to get your information from more reliable sources, such as college textbooks.

          > We are both seeking truth, I am coming from the faith and biblical angle, and you are coming from the humanist angle and science is our common element.

          Actually, I'm coming from the angle that evidence trumps tradition. That has nothing to do with humanism.

          Also, science is not our common element. You have been misinformed by people who use pseudoscientific claims to validate their beliefs, but it isn't science. (I suspect that most of them do it from ignorance rather than mendacity, simply repeating what they've heard their own authority figures say. But dressing myth up in scientific jargon doesn't make it true.)

          I'm sorry if I gave offense. Please understand that I am quite offended by people trying to use pseudoscience to justify teaching their religion in public schools, and I am going to refute it everywhere I see it.

          • I wasnt offended and totally appreciate your opinion.

            My sources are many, the website is one, please feel free to hit it up and feed me back counterpoints on it. I'd be interested in that.

            Science IS our common element, my errors are from not being a scientist. So long as science contines to be the pursuit of truth, and since I believe I found truth in god, why would I not appreciate science?

            I just wanted to give you guys new angles to look over, but please dont take what I say as a arguement, or that I know everything, I dont, only god does.

            You arent evolution, so dont be offended when someone challenges it, it makes it seem like ones religion or faith when you all defend it like that.

            Religion in schools:
            1) God wants people that will suffer for his name, so if everyone had religion pushed on them, we would have a very tame and very complacent christian population. So this thought supports no religion taught in schools.
            2) I think it should be allowed for people to practice their religion in schools under certain guidelines. We are there to learn not be preached to.

            Thanks for being cool
            bless you
            - rob
            • Like others have said, thermodynamics isn't a valid arguement against evolution, because there is energy being fed into the system via the sun, which feeds the engine by which conditions on earth can go from a state of lower order to a state of higher order.

              Genetic similarity, such as the case of 95% genetic similarity between chimps and humans, is consistent with evolution theory, a causal relationship is not necessisary to explain it. It proves no more than what we already knew, that chimps and humans have biological similarities.

              Humans and potatoes have about a 50% genetic similarity. We also share some traits with potatoes. For example, we have cells, and cell walls, and we use ATP as an energy source. All life needs to perform many of the same biochemical processes to exist. Why would a creator feel the need to come up with unique ways of doing the same things for all organisms?

              The fossil record is the largest, strongest source of evidence supporting evolution, and (pardon the pun) it seems to be rock solid.

              Evolution only contradicts a literal translation of a small part of the Bible, A good portion of Christians don't have a problem believing that God could have created life through the process of evolution. THis belief is more common in Europe than it is in America.


              • > Why would a creator feel the need to come up with unique ways of doing the same things for all organisms?

                Unfortunately, that convenience is a blow against creationism as a scientific explanation. As I said last time this topic came up, creationism is a wildcard explanation:

                Two animals are similar? God re-used the design! Two animals are different? God decided not to re-use the design!
                Wildcard explanations are useless to science because they don't really explain anything at all. A good theory makes testable predictions, or at least tells you where to look to find more interesting stuff. But the creationists' knee-jerk "Goddidit" explanation for everything tells you there's nothing more to see. It's a recipe for ignorance, not for science.
  • It is interesting, this step of evolution.

    If you have ever seen the matrix, and caught the ramble of one of the agents about how humans are a virus, spreading out and distroying the earth for it's own good.... it is true. And now to think (although this isn't a new and fresh idea) that humans took that step because of a virus... could some of the disposition of that virus or any virus effect our behavior?
  • If you haven't read Greg Bear's "Darwin's Radio" book you should. It weaves an interesting story in exactly this area that uses punctuated equilibrium, HERVs, speciation triggered by retroviruses, global disease epidemics, and its set (partially) in Seattle too :-)

    An interesting story set on top of some interesting scientific speculation.

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