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RE: Evolution is learning
March 26, 2012 at 9:49 am
(This post was last modified: March 26, 2012 at 10:01 am by The Grand Nudger.)
They are "inordinate and improbable" only to you amigo (and even then only when you consider the present scenario to be a "goal" of some sort, assigning probabilities to any particular without reference to all other potentialities). There are no "happy accidents" except by our insistence that they are such. Anthropic bias.
"Everything had to follow this path by happy accident so that we are lucky enough to be alive, oh wondrous day. The universe seems to fit me so perfectly". That has more to do with our own sense of importance, luck, and tendency to place ourselves as the primary object of any comparison than evolution (or any of it's various mechanisms).
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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RE: Evolution is learning
March 26, 2012 at 10:03 am
(This post was last modified: March 26, 2012 at 10:03 am by popeyespappy.)
The late Lynn Margulis’s work on endosymbiotic theory brought orthodoxy to a previously unorthodox hypothesis more than 20 years ago. Her work showed that mitochondria, chloroplasts, and possibly other organelles of eukaryotic cells have endosymbiotic origins. This is now generally accepted within the field of evolutionary biology.
Her hypothesis that horizontal gene transfer driven largely by virus has played a much larger role in the evolution of species than the slow accumulation of mutations at the individual gene level isn’t nearly as widely accepted. That’s not to say though that it completely without support among the scientific community, or that it is not supported by a good deal of evidence. The fact that about 8% of human DNA is viral in origin alone makes it hard to argue that horizontal transfer has played no role in our evolution. Whether or not that role has been more important than the gradual accumulation of mutations is however debatable.
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RE: Evolution is learning
March 26, 2012 at 11:20 pm
Thanks, popeyespappy.
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RE: Evolution is learning
March 27, 2012 at 9:44 am
(This post was last modified: March 27, 2012 at 9:45 am by Welsh cake.)
We to viruses are "Gene-Banks", they withdraw and deposit code with us constantly, making all sorts of transactions that we're oblivious to. Its not unexpected that they'd influence our make-up dramatically over time. Its disturbing to think of each and every time they've had "sex" with us and how many more times they'll continue to do so. 
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RE: Evolution is learning
March 27, 2012 at 10:14 am
Yeah..."and humans are "special" ....yeah RIGHT 
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RE: Evolution is learning
March 28, 2012 at 8:12 am
My dad even speculated once that cancer may be caused by a faulty virus - a virus with a damaged genome that instead of replicating within a host cell nucleus inside us, normally making more viruses, goes haywire.
The damaged viral RNA screws up the cell which mutates and causes it to divide and grow uncontrollably.
Of course, he could never prove it, its already nearly impossible to prove what causes any specific type of cancer in any individual today.
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RE: Evolution is learning
March 28, 2012 at 8:31 am
(March 28, 2012 at 8:12 am)Welsh cake Wrote: My dad even speculated once that cancer may be caused by a faulty virus - a virus with a damaged genome that instead of replicating within a host cell nucleus inside us, normally making more viruses, goes haywire.
The damaged viral RNA screws up the cell which mutates and causes it to divide and grow uncontrollably.
Of course, he could never prove it, its already nearly impossible to prove what causes any specific type of cancer in any individual today.
He wasn't too far from the mark mate. Many "ailments" are being found to have viral and mycoplasmic origins. The rest ...as they say ...is history. 
"The Universe is run by the complex interweaving of three elements: energy, matter, and enlightened self-interest." G'Kar-B5
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RE: Evolution is learning
March 29, 2012 at 7:38 pm
(March 26, 2012 at 9:02 am)ChadWooters Wrote: (March 25, 2012 at 8:03 pm)Phil Wrote: (March 25, 2012 at 11:30 am)ChadWooters Wrote: As a layman I summarized the work of those who specialize in evolutionary biology.
If you really think that is what you did, let me be the first to inform you that you are under a severe psychotic break with reality. Seek professional help. Okay fine, if you want to be an ass about it here's the technical abstract. Have fun refuting it.
The male-specific region of Y chromosome (MSY) has accumulated a higher density of human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) and related sequences when compared with other regions of the human genome. Here, we focused on one HERV family, HERV-K14C that seemed to integrate preferentially into the Y chromosome in humans. To identify every copies of HERV-K14C in the human genome, we applied computational screening to map precisely the locus of individual HERV-K14C copies. Interestingly, 29 of all 146 copies were located in Y chromosome, and these 29 copies were mostly dispersed in the palindromic region. Three distinct HERV-K14C-related transcripts were found and were exclusively expressed in human testis tissue. Based on our phylogenetic analysis of the solitary LTRs derived from HERV-K14C on the Y chromosome we suggested that these sequences were generated as pairs of identical sequences. Specifically, analysis of HERV-K14C-related sequences in the palindromic region demonstrated that the Y chromosomal amplicons existed in our common ancestors and the duplicated pairs arose after divergence of great apes approximately 8-10 million years ago. Taken together, our observation suggested that HERV-K14C-related sequences contributed to genomic diversification of Y chromosome during speciation of great ape lineage.
Quote the post where you think you summarized this. And also explain how this holds any support for the OP.
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