We have been following the increasing crackdown on passengers wearing T-Shirts on airlines deemed offensive or threatening. These cases often raise free speech questions, but also raise serious questions of the increasing irrationality of airline staff and some passengers. The t-shirt of Wynand Mullins is a good example. Mullins wore a t-shirt on a Qantas flight from Sydney with the well-known quote from Princess Bride by character Montoya (played in the film by Mandy Patinkin): “My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father, prepare to die.” Some passengers became alarmed by the t-shirt, presumably convinced that a terrorist would not only advertise his intent but choose a fictional character from a children’s book to represent his deep homicidal beliefs. Flight staff insisted that he change his shirt. Presumably, there was a passenger with five fingers that felt personally threatened by the quotation.
After he boarded his flight home to Auckland, New Zealand, a flight attendant took on the role of Count Rugen who insisted he did not like the line and told Montoya “Stop saying that!”
In this case, however, the flight attendant told him that the t-shirt was unacceptable for travel. He was only allowed to continue after he established that he did not have a change in shirts. You can see Mullins and his t-shirt at this site. I simply do not get how some passengers are so fearful that a joke t-shirt triggers such alarm. These are the same people presumably favoring greater and greater limitations on passengers and citizens under anti-terror laws. Fear has been wiped up to such a frenzy that passengers believe Al Qaeda is going into suicide missions wearing quotes from Rob Reiner films.
I only wish that when he was asked to change his shirt, Mullins pulled out a shirt quoting the character Vizzini: “you are friendless, brainless, helpless, hopeless!”
The alternative lines may not be much an improvement for general acceptance of the passengers:
Westley to Buttercup: “Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.”
Westley: “DEATH FIRST!”
Westley: “We are men of action, lies do not become us.”
Vizzini: “Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line”! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha… “
Of course, Montoya was warned that his “over-developed sense of vengeance is going to get you into trouble some day.”
Source: Daily Mail
“Differential reproduction happens naturally as a function of DNA combining in diamorphic sex.”
But not before microbes invented good sex.
New scary T-Shirt: “Diamorphic sex is not good for babies.”
Idealist707,
You draw up a T-Shirt with “Microbes gave us fermentation” on it to see if there are any “Snakes on Planes” … UmK?
Bron 1, January 28, 2013 at 8:09 am
Dredd:
please dont think my slight disagreement with you is bullying. I actually do think viruses have played a larger role in evolution than believed.
I didn’t.
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But I do think the universe is so because it has to be. In other words, it is the physics of the thing and it cannot be any other way.
I there is no choice so it cannot be any other way, that leaves out both natural and unnatural selection.
Darwinist bully priests will be shocked I tells ya, shocked!
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idealist707 1, January 28, 2013 at 1:06 pm
Bron,
Have Dredd draw some the mystical forces that are just so that a universe like ours can exist at all.
The net energy from fusing hydrogen is just enough to ignite the sun (0.0007), at 0.0006 it would not ignite, at 0.0008 it would explode and not be stable.
He is better at explainning things than I am. There are popular books available. Check your library.
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Dood, I already explained up-thread that microbes gave us fermentation.
Bron,
Have Dredd draw some the mystical forces that are just so that a universe like ours can exist at all.
The net energy from fusing hydrogen is just enough to ignite the sun (0.0007), at 0.0006 it would not ignite, at 0.0008 it would explode and not be stable.
He is better at explainning things than I am. There are popular books available. Check your library.
Dredd:
please dont think my slight disagreement with you is bullying. I actually do think viruses have played a larger role in evolution than believed.
But I do think the universe is so because it has to be. In other words, it is the physics of the thing and it cannot be any other way.
“… however evolution happened … Earth was just lucky enough to have all of the right conditions for life to emerge.”
The survival of the
fittestluckiest.All you bullies can now evolve into gamblers.
A new kind of hit or miss.
Whoopeee! science R us …
shano,
Differential reproduction happens naturally as a function of DNA combining in diamorphic sex. Most twins do have small differences, but in a broad sense, identical twins have similar but not identical fingerprints (genetics). The differences arise from from random local events during fetal development (environment). Read what Cecil says about it:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1277/do-identical-twins-have-different-fingerprints
Or you’re a scientific semi-literate with a boner looking for God in the microscopic world and willing to misunderstand and misrepresent whatever you need to rationalize your irrational belief to yourself.
ALL BOW BEFORE THE GREAT AND POWERFUL VIRUS!!! WORSHIP THE VIRUS!!! IT IS THE ONE TRUE GOD!!! IT MADE US ALL!!!
Nitwit.
Mathematics is the language of science but physics is the mother of everything.
The Cambrian explosion was caused by nothing more mystifying than a complexity boundary being reached. RNA and DNA had finally grown complex enough for multi-cellular life to flourish into a multitude of morphologies. That’s the mathematics and physics of it. Quite simply the incomplete fossil record and chemical signatures remaining in Cambrian rocks that remain as evidence are insufficient to support any other theories but especially one that involves viruses and bacteria. The complexity threshold combined with other factors such as increased oxygen in the atmosphere and calcium in the oceans led to rapid diversifying morphologies. These rapidly diversifying morphologies in turn led to a “genetic arms race” between predator and prey species that further amplified the effects of the complexity boundary being exceeded. Complexity and confluence of environment alone are sufficient to bring about life. No “microbial/viral guiding force” required.
Unless, of course, you’re battling for funding for your microbiology lab and its projects.
There is the unique problem of why identical twins have different fingerprints. One would think they would also be identical.
One theory is that viruses change the genes a bit so, although identical, they can differ in specifics.
Bron 1, January 27, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Dredd:
… But I imagine you dont mean manage as in cognition and willful purpose do you?
I mean what they mean, seeing as how the ideology comes from them, very seasoned evolutionary biologists, virologists, and microbiologists.
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If so, then I must disagree, however evolution happened it was just probability. Earth was just lucky enough to have all of the right conditions for life to emerge.
There are a lot of states of mind that seem to be faith of a secular or a religious sort even though the writer did not intend it that way.
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I like the statement by Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurrasic Park; “life will always find a way.”
One of the most famous evolutionists of our time (Ernst Mayr) feels that human intelligence was a “lethal mutation” so we would not be around long.
I suppose then, some could also validly wonder if human intelligence is “life.”
If the virologist evolutionists are right — and Mayr is also right — next time the viruses might not allow human intelligence eh?
idealist707 1, January 27, 2013 at 4:45 pm
…
Will follow, while waiting for a popular level book aimed at my level of ignorance which illustrates either the ultimate triumph (for now) or the still ongoing struggles of the dogs.
Doesn’t need colored pictures or graphs, although if carefully proof-read and understood by the illustrator, those are welcome also.
Any suggestions?
From both if I may ask.
No answer needed. Perhaps like biotic life, time will solve it..
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Some folks think that Scientific American, Discover, and similar mags and on line sites, put it in a more readable form.
Bron 1, January 27, 2013 at 3:36 pm
Dredd:
Gene makes some good points, a virus is not really alive per se. But I imagine you dont mean manage as in cognition and willful purpose do you?
If so, then I must disagree, however evolution happened it was just probability. Earth was just lucky enough to have all of the right conditions for life to emerge. I like the statement by Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurrasic Park; “life will always find a way.”
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Scientists have gone back and forth about viruses and life:
(quoted from book review by ABS microbiologist). The point is that today’s textbooks about the subject are based on false data that scientists who specialize in virology and microbiology know is in error.
But there is consensus that some are “alive” or must be considered as part of the web of life. The “not” alive begins with prions and most phages, however, the most developed viruses are considered to be of the web of life:
(Scientific American, Are Viruses Alive?, by Luis P. Villarreal, 2004). Viruses, the book argues, are ultimately important in evolutionary discussions.
The issue that is called “Darwin’s Dilemma” is called that because Darwin wrote about it in Origin of Species, indicating that objections to his hypothesis could be made because of it:
(Cambrian Explosion, Wikipedia). The virologists and microbiologists who did the book I quote from up-thread look to an explosion of activity in microbial evolution, generation of oxygen and development of RNA, then intense viral genetic activity as a hypothesis to fill that 10-50 million year “gap.”
Saved from moderation. Hope have fixed the problem with a55hole.
idealist7071, January 27, 2013 at 4:34 pm
You guys fight a good battle. I see no need for me to characterize you respectively, but it is tempting to an old snarkerare.
Oh well, since you didn’t ask:
GeneH is the man who has read it all, “understood” it all (he may have in wider terms also) and puts it on the bookshelf (computer access line by line, tag for tag) and regards it a holy until some a55holy, who corresponding to a quantum physicist comes along and stirs up trouble. This is snarky of course.
Dredd, is a brilliant enthusiast, who looks very effectively for material which supports his psychic needs to be a groundbreaking pioneer.
He can’t read his comments with GeneH’s eyes while writing them.
No other barbs pop up for the moment, mainly because I read Gene’s latest most recently. Saved by the weakness of my memory.
I like Dredd’s wish for new insights and breadthroughs but the rigor of the establlished must be proven not true. I can’t any at all.
I also long for the effective defenses from the established scientists, hinted at by GeneH
Now I will retire, being a pup barking around the two dogs contending over a bone. My barks are ineffective and ridiculous.
Will follow, while waiting for a popular level book aimed at my level of ignorance which illustrates either the ultimate triumph (for now) or the still ongoing struggles of the dogs.
Doesn’t need colored pictures or graphs, although if carefully proof-read and understood by the illustrator, those are welcome also.
Any suggestions?
From both if I may ask.
No answer needed. Perhaps like biotic life, time will solve it..
Dredd:
Gene makes some good points, a virus is not really alive per se. But I imagine you dont mean manage as in cognition and willful purpose do you?
If so, then I must disagree, however evolution happened it was just probability. Earth was just lucky enough to have all of the right conditions for life to emerge. I like the statement by Jeff Goldblum’s character in Jurrasic Park; “life will always find a way.”
“but remember this is rebel science,”
In other words, science without enough proof to be accepted as anything other than theoretical by the biology community at large.
“Patterns and rates of evolution are much more varied than had been conceived by Darwin”
Except that Darwin didn’t come up with the idea of punctured equilibrium nor did your guys, Dredd. It was proposed by paleontologists Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould based upon the fossil record. And again, that viruses may play a part in the phenomenon does not mean that they are the only mechanic responsible for it. Random mutation is just as likely a cause as are abrupt environmental changes (particularly those that select in for a recessive gene).
“I felt I needed to note and emphasize that the new viral theories I presented via quotes up-thread, which have scared some folks here and there, lean toward the hypothesis that viral evolution happened prior to single cell evolution.”
No. Some of us actually understand the science that you don’t. Also, no one has said viral “evolution” didn’t occur before prokaryotic or eukaryotic cell. Viruses aren’t alive in the biological sense though. They are at the cusp of abiotic and biotic chemistry. Something you gloss over and don’t understand as demonstrated above when you conflated microbes and viruses and thus illustrate your ignorance of even the basics of biology.
The bottom line keeps coming back to that you are talking out of your ass when you talk (ad nauseum) about evolution let alone biology and chemistry. You simply don’t understand evolution any better than the microbiology you read. If you did, you’d realize all the work you point to as “proof” of you theory about viruses and microbes controlling the world not only supplements evolution but reinforces it, however, it does not supplant it. Natural selection and its many inputs (and the very real mathematics behind it) is not theory and it remains the primary explanation for adaptive evolution whether your “rebel science” confabulation likes it or not. The difference between what you preach and the idiocy that is Intelligent Design is a hair’s breadth. You just substitute viruses and microbes for God. Nothing “created” or “managed” any thing. The right kind of chemistry for life arose as a matter of chance that the Earth had enough liquid water, enough energy added to the system from the sun and volcanism, and the right chemicals in the right proportions for it to eventually come about as a matter of increasing molecular complexity arising over time as a matter of random combinations. Life is a fluke of the right things being at the right place under the right conditions for a long enough time for a stable biome to arise.
dredd:
I like this virus theory, I never believed that a fuggin whale came from an animal that just started spending more time in the water hunting for food so it went from an animal about 6′ long to 60′ long in the span of a few million years and became 100% aquatic.
No way without a good deal more help than some minor pressure from a food source.
And I dont give a good god dam what the experts think. those dumb asses also thought a good deal of what is now commonly accepted was wrong.
The small minds of science have prevented many correct ideas to be many years longer than necessary in their acceptance. Postponing leaps forward in knowledge.
When dilemmas arise in the theory of the case during T-Shirt bad-word litigation, not-so-honest lawyers try to argue their way out of it in place of reasoning their way out of it.
On the other hand, when honest scientists incur a dilemma in a hypothesis or theory, they try to science their way out of it.
Dilemmas in Darwinian and other evolutionary biology are not an exception:
(R. L. Carroll, “Towards a new evolutionary synthesis,” Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 15(1):27-32, 2000, emphasis added). That is exactly what evolutionary consideration of microbes in the evolutionary synthesis does.
Microbial creation and proliferation of RNA etc. provides a quick way, in evolutionary time scales, for the proliferation of genetic material, the development of oxygen, etc., which tend to be scientific approaches rather than ad hominem approaches that are infantile (cf. Have We Solved Darwin’s Dilemma?).
Lub and police.
Bron and Idealist707,
Concerning scary stuff on T-Shirts.
The links to all the papers cited are available at the rebel science site under the name Weekend Rebel Science Excursion – 13.
WARNING: Don’t go there without first getting your standard issue pitchfork from Dr. The Greatest Gene.
You might encounter some avenues that lead to scientists there …
idealist707 1, January 27, 2013 at 12:03 pm
Dredd,
The support, for example, for the development of complexities like the eye, has been in Darwinistic examples, the slow development from a light sensitive skin patch to the most complex development currently available.
This is the Darwinistic approach.
The sudden development of the brainpower of humans has not been explained in this fashion, some would declare.
Your quotation from the APS seems an interesting idea.
WTF do they know about microbiology, etc.?
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Not as much as Dr. The Greatest Gene, but remember this is rebel science, not the science of the flatulent Earth Society he hopes to preside over.
The hypothesis presented in my quotes up-thread to the book “Viruses: Essential Agents of Life” is a plausible hypothesis that viruses developed RNA prior to single celled life, then developed DNA symbiotically, and therefore were able to engineer life forms that appear “suddenly” (Cambrian Explosion or Darwin’s Dilemma) over a small time scale, in evolutionary time scale (10-30 million years).