Sunday, March 12, 2006

Suggestions for thread subjects

Suggestions for thread subjects

I offer this blog as a neutral venue where and IDers andDarwinists might like to interact on neutral ground. Beyond reserving the right to delete obscenity and spam, I do not intend to apply any moderation and ask any posters to exercise self-discipline and observe the normal civilities. I welcome ideas for topics. Please post them here.

10 comments:

JohnADavison said...

For some unknown reason the folks over at EvC have debanned me to the extent that I can defend my Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis on their new "showcase" forum. Of course I leaped at this opportunity and have been enjoying myself thoroughly as I usually do when popsting on the great world wide web. David Springer aka DaveScot managed to eliminate himself from the discussion with his typical rabid personal attacks upon my honesty and integrity. Since then virtually nothing of import has transpired. No one has answered my four challenges to the gradualist Darwinian myth and attempts have been made to engage me in matters that have nothing to do with my thesis.

Most recently I seized the opportunity to comment on the leadership of the two major factions by pointing out that there is not a scientist in the entire lot. This too seems to be meeting with gratifying silence.

I suspect that they invited me back confident that I would be reduced to an intellectual shambles. Quite the contrary it seems I am immune to any further attempt to denigrate either my thesis or that of the several sources on which my own work depends. While I am surprised at this golden silence, I really can't complain.

"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison

Alan Fox said...

John

Do you want a thread about your four challenges to evolution?

DaveScot said...

Alan

Could you start a thread for Bob OH and I to continue arguing about whether mycelial colonies are, in the context of evolution, single multi-celled organisms or collections of individual single celled organisms. My position is that they are the latter and that evolution can take place within a single colony via various mechanisms including gene induction.

I bring this up because I have resumed experimenting with a volvariella volvacea colony which had apparently (barring experimental error on my part) acquired the ability to break down high concentrations of hydrogen peroxide. I hypothesized that the ability was due to gene induction whereby (probably through methylation) a peroxide decomposing enzyme was inducted. I further hypothesized that the induction would be sticky and would persist across generations of mycelia even in the absence of high peroxide concentrations.

After a long distraction I just recently recultured the h2o2 resistant colony. It has been living in a more or less dormant state on a non-peroxide agar plate (several plates actually) for about 7 weeks now. I recultured it onto fresh non-peroxide agar yesterday and it is already showing new growth so it's still a vibrant, normal colony on its usual PDA medium. I have also prepared agar plates with various concentrations of peroxide to reculture these onto as soon as they grow out (4-5 days). The original colony took 2 weeks to adapt to the peroxide. If my hypothesis is correct the colony I'm growing out now shouldn't have any lag time when recultured onto the new peroxide plates.

Mark Frank said...

Alan

I just realised this is where you want people to raise requests for threads. Could you start one on

Specification versus likelihood

as described in this
comment

Thanks

Alan Fox said...

OK, and welcome, Mark.

Alan Fox said...

Bloody hell Tim, thanks, (I think).
I'll give them a go. As Dawkins is my hero I'll start with him

JohnADavison said...

Hey folks. Dawkins is Alan's hero. Can anyone in his right mind agree with him?

I love it so!

DaveScot said...

On ATBC

Going back a bit, Dave talks about his belief in front-loading. I assume that this means that everything was loaded in the original DNA. What does this mean exactly?

Does this mean that you could find in a jellyfish DNA the information to create a human? If it does then it's testable isn't it?

If it's just that God created the initial ancestor and started it all, how is that different from Evolution?

The only other thing I can think of is that the original critter had DNA that created everything and DNA gets thrown out as species develop. That is as the first amphibians left the water they threw out the fin making genes and the fish knowing that amphibians had evolved throw out the genes for making legs.

Or is it just me trying to get that pitiful level of detail stuff.


Testable? 50% of our DNA is the same as a banana's! What more do you need?

Alan Fox said...

Sorry Dave,

I just noticed your post. Do you want me to start a thread for you on front-loading? If you post it here, I will paste it as a new thread. I can give it a heads-up at AtBC too.

Unknown said...

I see that you have joined the "Association of Non-Practicing Bloggers". Given that the current thread on "I'm from Missouri" demonstrates that you are the only practicing member, why do you maintain this membership?

I have to congratulate you. While your thoughts and mine differ on the major subjects posted on this blog, you present yourself well and do not rant or insult your commenters. I would suspect that this blog will grow in readership.