Humans cause yeast to become multicellular, a threat to ID?

[zoegirl]

Seems a bit unfair to reject what someone has to say because of the format it is in.

Yes, it is. That's why some people will make an emotional appeal, knowing they can convince some people with emotion whereas more logical people will ignore (but be annoyed by) the emotion and look at the facts. But what does this statement have to do with anything?

Well, we are having a discussion here about a news story. People are presenting views from different perspectives. You are rejecting a viewpoint you disagree with because of it's format. That seems to violate the spirit of people discussing the issue. That's what it has to 'do with anything'.

I'm not making an emotional appeal. What is the point in having a discussion at all if one side is going to reject information they don't like because of the packaging? I guess I feel like it defeats the purpose.

Must say I have to agree with this. Seems a silly objection.

[MarcusOfLycia]

I'm not rejecting anything. I am ignoring it because I don't want to spend at least 50 minutes listening to it. [How many people here have listened to the entire presentation?]

You aren't forced to listen to it. No one is going to get mad or anything. But if we are trying to piece together various opinions on something to figure out what this news means, we should probably be willing to listen to the information out there. That would include spending the fifty minutes listening to this.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you were. I was just giving that as an example where someone logical would not reject an argument due to the presentation.

I may have misread. The wording was unclear to me at first. No biggie.

Must say I have to agree with this. Seems a silly objection.

Heh, glad to know I'm not going crazy

[Ivellious]

OK so nothing is proven or unproven till we get multiple experiments with the same results. My next question would be what would Happen to ID/creationism if this was true? Would they lose any credibility?

Well, here's my take:

Nothing in science is really proven. Yes, we can prove that an apple falls if you drop it, but technically speaking the Theory of Gravity is just our way of describing/interpreting why/how things fall here on Earth, why/how we revolve around the sun, etc. The point is, science can prove facts (apple falls from tree), but our ultimate explanations are never proven, and are always subject to revision based on future evidence. Gravity has remained a relatively constant description of nature, though our understanding of it and the applications of it have expanded enormously since the days of Newton. The Theory of Evolution has not remained quite as constant; it has been defined, redefined, updated, and so on ever since it was initially proposed by Darwin. Most of the initial ideas and predictions Darwin made have been determined to be false by later evidence. The areas of genetics and paleontology have been particularly important in revising the Theory of Evolution to where it is today. As far as I can tell, the Theory of evolution is rather firm in its place in science. As in, it probably isn't going to undergo any sort of change in its message anytime soon.

ID/creationism probably won't gain or lose much regardless of the outcome. It's not like they have a ton of credibility in the scientific community to lose at the moment, and all this does is potentially strengthen the evidence for evolution. ID loses its argument that multi-cellular organisms couldn't have evolved from single-celled organisms, but that's about it on their end.

[Gman]

The Theory of Evolution has not remained quite as constant; it has been defined, redefined, updated, and so on ever since it was initially proposed by Darwin. Most of the initial ideas and predictions Darwin made have been determined to be false by later evidence. The areas of genetics and paleontology have been particularly important in revising the Theory of Evolution to where it is today. As far as I can tell, the Theory of evolution is rather firm in its place in science. As in, it probably isn't going to undergo any sort of change in its message anytime soon..

Firm in it's place of philosophy of religion...

[Ivellious]

Next time, try actually adding something to a discussion instead of throwing around your unfounded opinion...Or if you want to put in your thoughts, why not actually expand on them and give someone a reason to care?

And for the record, I was only saying that the Theory of Evolution wasn't likely to change any time soon, nothing else.

[Gman]

Next time, try actually adding something to a discussion instead of throwing around your unfounded opinion...Or if you want to put in your thoughts, why not actually expand on them and give someone a reason to care?

And for the record, I was only saying that the Theory of Evolution wasn't likely to change any time soon, nothing else.

Likewise.. Your emotional opinions based on your religious philosophy amount to nothing either.. That is all we are doing here. If you want to talk about science, then proceed... So far I've seen nothing.

[Ivellious]

What opinion on here has been emotional? Have you read anything on here? Honestly, it's people like you that really frustrate me in this debate. You refuse all science as fake despite knowing nothing about it, obviously. If you want to provide actual criticism, be my guest, but don't tell me you want to talk science while ignoring all the science out there...For instance, maybe you could actually read the research paper like a normal person would and draw actual conclusions. Instead of, you know, blindly tossing out insults that have nothing to do with the experiment in question...

[cubeus19]

Watch your tone Ivellious, you might get banned. Just warning ya.

[neo-x]

Calm down guys, talking past each other is not gonna earn you any medals. It will just result in frustration. Of course if each side will continue to blame each other for "ignorance" and "emotionalism", the posts are bound to become personal at some point.

@ cebeus
I don't think Ivel has said used a tone for which he should be banned. Where did you come up with that?
We have had threads in the past with people being tooooo direct than this, so chill. No need to sound an alarm. Lets just step back and take a deep breath.

[Ivellious]

Sorry, I just don't appreciate somebody coming into a legitimate ongoing discussion with random, unprovoked insults. It just removes all chance of a conversation.

[Silverfang]

maybe you could actually read the research paper like a normal person would and draw actual conclusions.

Whoa, would you happen to have a link or anything to the research paper? That'd be a pretty interesting read.

[Ivellious]

Silverfang:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/ ... l.pdf+html

Hopefully this works, sometimes you need special access to use these (like being a student at a university), but I think this one is public.

[Silverfang]

Silverfang:

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/ ... l.pdf+html

Hopefully this works, sometimes you need special access to use these (like being a student at a university), but I think this one is public.

cool , I got in and saved the pdf to my desktop. Thanks a bunch!

[Rich]

I read the original article in PNAS. What they did was do selection experiments by removing cells that did not settle quickly. Essentially, they selected for cells that stuck to each other. They used the word “genotype” in their paper, but never looked at anything other than phenotype (quick settling clumps). There is no genetics, no mechanism of action and the only “differentiation” they measured was “apoptosis,” in which they actually measured cell death (not real apoptosis). The clusters reproduced differently than the unicellular wt, but that would be expected, since a cluster that reproduced by single cell fusion would be selected against, because they would be poured off. The “genotype” was less fit than its wt parents, unless it was centrifuged. Again, no genetic analysis was ever done. It has to have been one of the most stupid experiments in the history of science. If they had tried to get the study published in a peer-reviewed journal, it would have been rejected. There is zero evidence they have produced a true multicellular organism. Maybe I will do an article on it.

By the way, the NASA study purporting to have "found" bacteria that eat arsenic has been shown to be false. There was zero arsenic in the DNA, as I had predicted. I updated the post:

http://www.godandscience.org/evolution/ ... teria.html

[zoegirl]

Thanks Rich, I was wondering about the differentiation idea.

Is PNAS not peer-reviewed?