Comments on: Universal theories–the opium of the elite http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/ A graduate student in mathematics and a modern languages major take on politics and culture with the following aspirational motto: ‘Deregulate your mind.’ Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:10:27 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2.1 By: Dave http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/#comment-19167 Dave Wed, 23 Aug 2006 14:47:46 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/#comment-19167 <p>I wasn’t aware of the phenomenon but thanks to Google I found something that may or may not be what you are talking about. It had something to do with the “Haldane Dilemma” where you have a limited volume of mutations that can be absorbed in a given time which for reasons that escape me would put a damper on the speed of evolution. This is what I mean by being rusty. I don’t have any contact with these theories and don’t understand them. I do know that they can be seized upon by people who are more ignorant than I am for political/religious reasons. http://www.gate.net/~rwms/haldane.html This article gave the example of chimps and humans. To test the Haldane hypothesis you would determine the differences between two and see if the known genetic differences would correlate with the time differences since they separated from a common ancestor. One trouble is, how do you know that mutations occur just one at a time? For instance, I heard on NPR yesterday that one of the biggest differences between humans and chimps brains has to do with a gene that instructs up to thirty other genes what protein to synthesize. Thus a mutation in this one gene could be thirty times more significant. Could this explain accelerated evolution?</p> I wasn’t aware of the phenomenon but thanks to Google I found something that may or may not be what you are talking about. It had something to do with the “Haldane Dilemma” where you have a limited volume of mutations that can be absorbed in a given time which for reasons that escape me would put a damper on the speed of evolution. This is what I mean by being rusty. I don’t have any contact with these theories and don’t understand them. I do know that they can be seized upon by people who are more ignorant than I am for political/religious reasons. http://www.gate.net/~rwms/haldane.html This article gave the example of chimps and humans. To test the Haldane hypothesis you would determine the differences between two and see if the known genetic differences would correlate with the time differences since they separated from a common ancestor. One trouble is, how do you know that mutations occur just one at a time? For instance, I heard on NPR yesterday that one of the biggest differences between humans and chimps brains has to do with a gene that instructs up to thirty other genes what protein to synthesize. Thus a mutation in this one gene could be thirty times more significant. Could this explain accelerated evolution?

]]> By: Curt http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/#comment-18942 Curt Wed, 23 Aug 2006 02:08:54 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/#comment-18942 <p>I'm certainly aware that the concept of genetic drift is by definition random, I just question whether that concept sufficiently explains certain genotypes moving to fixation points in a population despite a seeming lack of evolutionary pressure. It seems to me that you are also tying the disapperance of vestigial traits to something like the tendency for entropy in a system to increase, which is a very intriguing idea, but not I think itself entirely within the Darwinian mainstream, except to the extent that the energy expenditure in building organs is deemed somewhat vaguely to cost organisms reproductive potential. And your idea is in fact something like what I think Bergson was trying to say, in very imprecise language, with his notion of the "élan vital" of creative evoution resisting the atrophy and degradation of matter into simpler forms.</p> I’m certainly aware that the concept of genetic drift is by definition random, I just question whether that concept sufficiently explains certain genotypes moving to fixation points in a population despite a seeming lack of evolutionary pressure. It seems to me that you are also tying the disapperance of vestigial traits to something like the tendency for entropy in a system to increase, which is a very intriguing idea, but not I think itself entirely within the Darwinian mainstream, except to the extent that the energy expenditure in building organs is deemed somewhat vaguely to cost organisms reproductive potential. And your idea is in fact something like what I think Bergson was trying to say, in very imprecise language, with his notion of the “élan vital” of creative evoution resisting the atrophy and degradation of matter into simpler forms.

]]> By: Dave http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/#comment-18881 Dave Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:20:04 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/#comment-18881 <p>It seem to me that what you are saying is a little heretical. But don’t worry the scientists won’t burn you at the stake. My evolutionary thinking may be a bit rusty, but if I recall the changes wrought by genetic drift were by definition random. If a population is anything but infinite certain traits will become more or less common simply by chance. By the same token the genetic combinations that maintain complex systems, such as vision, will drift and vision will be progressively lost if it has no function. The bad thing about this is that it indicates thing are always trying to come apart. The wonderful visual system we have was developed because the our ancestor “monkeys” that didn’t see the ripe fruit or guess the right distance while swinging between trees did not contribute to our fund of visual skills. Fortunately we can cheat the system for the benefit of humanity for some time. After a few billion years of natural selection maybe it is time for a break. Do you thing it will happen?</p> It seem to me that what you are saying is a little heretical. But don’t worry the scientists won’t burn you at the stake. My evolutionary thinking may be a bit rusty, but if I recall the changes wrought by genetic drift were by definition random. If a population is anything but infinite certain traits will become more or less common simply by chance. By the same token the genetic combinations that maintain complex systems, such as vision, will drift and vision will be progressively lost if it has no function. The bad thing about this is that it indicates thing are always trying to come apart. The wonderful visual system we have was developed because the our ancestor “monkeys” that didn’t see the ripe fruit or guess the right distance while swinging between trees did not contribute to our fund of visual skills. Fortunately we can cheat the system for the benefit of humanity for some time. After a few billion years of natural selection maybe it is time for a break. Do you thing it will happen?

]]> By: Curt http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/#comment-17410 Curt Fri, 18 Aug 2006 17:47:47 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/#comment-17410 <p><em>When did your parents rename you from “Lakeside” to “Curt”?</em></p> <p>Um, I guess I could've added a comma to the clause or reversed the order, but that doesn't seem totally necessary, especially since I assume my readers are of a reasonable and charitable disposition.</p> <p><em>What do you mean by “…the steady progession of certain neutral proteins in the body to fixation points in the population…”? Are you just talking about DNA sequences?</em></p> <p>There are certain inactive proteins, whose names unfortunately I can't recall, which have increased in hominid and human bodies steadily over evolutionary time to fixation point. In biology classes they use this as an example of the potential long-term effects of genetic drift, but that seems like a weak explanation, given that by definition there is no apparent evolutionary explanation for this phenomenon.</p> When did your parents rename you from “Lakeside” to “Curt”?

Um, I guess I could’ve added a comma to the clause or reversed the order, but that doesn’t seem totally necessary, especially since I assume my readers are of a reasonable and charitable disposition.

What do you mean by “…the steady progession of certain neutral proteins in the body to fixation points in the population…”? Are you just talking about DNA sequences?

There are certain inactive proteins, whose names unfortunately I can’t recall, which have increased in hominid and human bodies steadily over evolutionary time to fixation point. In biology classes they use this as an example of the potential long-term effects of genetic drift, but that seems like a weak explanation, given that by definition there is no apparent evolutionary explanation for this phenomenon.

]]> By: Andy Stedman http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/#comment-17409 Andy Stedman Fri, 18 Aug 2006 13:46:30 +0000 http://www.sellingwaves.com/2006/08/17/universal-theories-the-opium-of-the-elite/#comment-17409 <p>When did your parents rename you from "Lakeside" to "Curt"?</p> <p>Maybe creatures with tails get them injured a lot and die from infections, and this disadvantage is cancelled out if the creature needs the tail to hang from trees.</p> <p>What do you mean by "...the steady progession of certain neutral proteins in the body to fixation points in the population..."? Are you just talking about DNA sequences?</p> When did your parents rename you from “Lakeside” to “Curt”?

Maybe creatures with tails get them injured a lot and die from infections, and this disadvantage is cancelled out if the creature needs the tail to hang from trees.

What do you mean by “…the steady progession of certain neutral proteins in the body to fixation points in the population…”? Are you just talking about DNA sequences?

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