Theorizing.

[Agent Intellect]

INTP's are (stereotypically) supposed to be theoretically minded: Extroverted intuitives (Ne) are supposed to find patterns and meaning in often times disparate things; introverted thinkers (Ti) are supposed to be good at systemizing and ordering things into a logical mental model. This may or may not be true, but I'm interested in the sorts of theories that a group of INTP's (and anyone else who wants to add their two cents) can come up with for as of yet to be explained phenomena.

Some of these have legitimate hypotheses, but no solid theory. I'm not interested in hearing parroted hypotheses from other people, because if I wanted to know that, I would just google it. I'm interested in what types of novel theorizing people can come up with - things that are coherent, non-contradictory, and new.

The point of this exercise is to practice creativity and ability to theorize and make connections. Use whatever disparate, loosely connected facts/observations you want to come up with your theory that still maintains coherence, consistency, and at least a reasonable order of probability.

So, the challenge to anyone still interested is to take one or more of the following problems and attempt to make a theory explaining them. What do you get for coming up with your awesome theory? Nothing, except the satisfaction of proposing a possible explanation for a phenomenon, and the opportunity to test your theoretical mettle.




1. M-sigma relation.
Galaxies that have been observed and measured have supermassive black holes in the center. These galaxies also have a speed in which the stars orbit this supermassive black hole, and this speed is called sigma. There is a relationship between the mass of the black hole and the sigma of the galaxy:

Spoiler

Here is the problem: the outer stars are only minimally influenced (close enough to be zero influence) by the gravity of the supermassive black hole, yet the mas of the black hole seems to have an influence (based on observations) on the sigma of the galaxy. What could explain this?


2. Junk DNA.
While a lot of research since the term was coined has found various purposes for parts of the genome that do not code for proteins (leading to re-naming it to non-coding DNA) there is still a large portion of the genome that is not understood (see introns, for example).

Several problems emerge, the first and obvious being: what is this supposedly junk DNA supposed to do? The second is, if it does nothing, how did it get there in the first place? What evolutionary advantage might this extra DNA have?


3. Foam Bubbles.
Bubbles within all foams self-organize to obey three universal laws (Plateau's laws):
First, whenever bubbles join, three film surfaces intersect at every edge (never two or four, always three).
Second, each pair of intersecting films, once they have stabilized, forms an angle of exactly 120 degrees.
Third, wherever edges meet at a point, the edges always number exactly four, and the angle is always inverse cosine of -1/3 (about 109.5 degrees).

Some facts: in the case of two joined bubbles, Plateau's laws derive from the action of surface tension, which force bubbles to adopt the most stable configuration; 120 degrees (2nd law) is the electron geometry of a trigonal planar molecule; 109.5 degrees (3rd law) is the electron geometry of a tetrahedral molecule.

There is yet to be any explanation for this phenomena. Can you come up with anything?


4. Evolutionary Psychology.
A current popular explanation for a lot of common human behavior is that humans evolved to act in certain ways. Some studies show that people are attracted to the smell (pheromones) of people who have immune systems that differ from our own (which would allow for a better roll of the genetic dice for the offspring). People from all cultures, including tribes that have had little contact with the outside world, have a lot of similar phobias (spiders, snakes, heights) to those in industrialized societies, and have the same autonomic reactions to emotions (laughing at things that are funny, frowning when sad etc). This would go against the grain of the popular western dogma of tabula rasa.

There is a lot of controversy surrounding evolutionary psychology.

So, the first question is common: nature or nurture? If there is no nature aspect, what would explain these common features? Is there anything besides and/or in addition to nature and nurture that contributes to our behaviors?

If nature is a component to our behavior, and it is not a product of evolution, then where do these common behaviors come from? What explanation is there for the commonality of these behaviors/traits?


5. Higgs Boson.
Hypothetical quantized particle of the Higgs field that gives mass to vector bosons. This essentially means that it gives mass to energy, causing it to resist acceleration, so that there can be matter, as well as symmetry breaking in the electroweak force.

Here's the problem: it's only hypothetical, yet the standard model of quantum mechanics depends on it, as well as E8 theory (which requires more than one kind of Higgs Boson). A Higgs Boson has never been observed or experimentally verified.

If the Higgs Field fails to explain how there is matter, then what could explain the existence of matter? Why isn't all of existence made of energy? What causes matter to resist acceleration?


6. Alternative Mechanisms of Evolution.
Evolution by natural selection is the theory of the diversity of life on earth accepted by the majority of scientists. But is natural selection the only thing that drives evolution? Genetic drift, gene flow, and horizontal gene transfer are possible mechanisms that can contribute to evolution, but they would be inadequate to explain the vast diversity of life, particularly from common descent. Sexual selection would also add to diversity, but it would be inadequate to explain how diversity arose in the first place (particularly if early life was asexual) and tends to be predicated on natural selection happening already.

So, what is something other than natural selection that could be the driving force of evolution? If natural selection is the only answer, then is the theory of beneficial genetic mutations the only way novel traits could arise?


7. The Flynn Effect.
Over time, as IQ tests are revised, they have to be made with new standards. If people take an IQ test from 20~ years ago, the average score will be higher than 100 (which is supposed to be average). This suggests a marked increase in the IQ of people as time goes on, and it occurs linearly. This effect has been seen all over the world, but not always at the same rate.

There have been several proposed explanations for this.

Can you think of anything else that might contribute to this? Are people really becoming more intelligent each generation? What implications could this have for the heritability of intelligence?


8. Autoimmune disease.
An autoimmune disease is when an organisms own body attacks itself (usually a certain organ) as if it were a pathogen, failing to recognize the tissue as being part of the self - similar to graft-vs-host disease, only its with tissue produced by ones own body. There is no known cause for why this happens, and the only treatment for it is to suppress the immune system. Autoimmune diseases are usually chronic, and can spring up seemingly out of nowhere.

Some facts about autoimmune diseases: they are highly overrepresented in developed countries; they can start following an infection, which suggests that the infection induced the autoimmune reaction; there is a genetic factor in autoimmune diseases.

So, the question is obvious: what causes autoimmune disease? Is there a molecular biological cause? Could it even be a psychological cause? Is there an evolutionary explanation? An environmental explanation?

For whatever theory you propose on the cause, what is a possible treatment/cure that could be proposed?




EDIT:

As an extra challenge: for any theories you come up with, can it make any predictions? For instance, if you come up with a theory about the mass-sigma relation, what could be inferred from this for other phenomena in the universe? What could we expect about the nature of the cosmos based on your theory? Could you come up with an experiment to test your hypothesis? This can be done for any of these choices.

 

[The Journey]

Oh...


so INTP == genius.

Thanks dude.

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Oh...


so INTP == genius.

Thanks dude.

No sarcasm needed, AI meant that we are creative thinkers. Basically it's like putting a bunch of monkeys in a room to see what story they can come up with. This is an experiment to see if we could make some outlandish theories that could possibly lead to some new connections and information.

 

[Stoic Beverage]

2.) I've often wondered about this myself. I think that evolution (and I'll type as if evolution is a thinking being. I know this isn't the case, but it's easier) makes mistakes fairly often. As Charles Darwin said, any "mistake" that is a hindrance to feeding and reproducing will die out, as compared to positive traits flourishing. However, if evolution makes a mistake that is neither a hindrance nor a help, then it's really just a big coin toss as to whether it sticks around. Junk DNA doesn't hurt anybody (as far as I know), so simple chance determined that it stuck around.
5.) Imagine that there is no matter, only energy. If energy has mass, then it has gravity. The pure energy would coagulate into a ball. If all this energy, all the energy in the universe, were to squeeze itself into a ball, I think it'd eventually reach a point of infinite density and infinite smallness, which sets the stage for the big bang. Which, as we know, created plenty of matter.
7.) Actually, as an article in Discover magazine states, the average individual is actually getting less intelligent. We're losing brain mass. The average caveman had an entire tennis ball more of volume to his brain. This is because as a caveman, you have to be quick on your feet. Your survival depends on your ability to care for yourself, so they were naturally pretty sharp. As society develops, we have people to lean on, like friends and family. With this safety net, we become less independent, and lose this sharpness. I'll come back to this point. Also note that IQ tests mostly just note logic and pattern recognition, not so much other areas of intelligence. While the average caveman was witty, wit is not measured in an IQ test. As society developed, logic and pattern recognition is taught in schools and constantly reinforced as positive, making it a more common and advanced trait. So, I think that as society develops, the average person loses individuality, but gains skills in logic and pattern recognition. That being what an IQ test measures, the average IQ increases.
8.) Note, I know almost nothing about the principles of medicine, so I may sound like an idiot. But I'll give it a try. After an infection, some cells in the immune system may be damaged. It'll go on the equivalent of a drunken rampage and attack whatever it sees first. Say, the liver. Now, a way to simplify most computations in a large system is to make the small components take cues from each other. Instead of the brain telling each individual cell what to do, if an immune system cell starts attacking something, another cell will attack, too. Much quicker than waiting to go to the brain, then attack. So, when a cell sees a "drunken" cell attacking the liver, another cell does too. This spreads, and then your body is attacking itself unchecked.

I hope at least some of this makes sense, it certainly took a while.

 

[OrionzRevenge]

1. M-sigma relation.
Galaxies that have been observed and measured have super-massive black holes in the center. These galaxies also have a speed in which the stars orbit this super-massive black hole, and this speed is called sigma. There is a relationship between the mass of the black hole and the sigma of the galaxy:



Here is the problem: the outer stars are only minimally influenced (close enough to be zero influence) by the gravity of the super-massive black hole, yet the mas of the black hole seems to have an influence (based on observations) on the sigma of the galaxy. What could explain this?

This seems fairly straight forward to me. Every object that has mass exerts a gravitational tug on every other object of mass.

The inner stars enslaved by the black-hole's gravity tug on further away stars as they orbit past.

This not only drives them forward in the direction biased for in the galaxy's infancy, but it also shepherds them into a 'flatter' disk and maintains orbital position.

This is the same accretion disc dynamics
that starts any time dust & gas begin to gather to form: planets & moons, debris rings, solar systems, and galaxies.

 

[OrionzRevenge]

2. Junk DNA.
While a lot of research since the term was coined has found various purposes for parts of the genome that do not code for proteins (leading to re-naming it to non-coding DNA) there is still a large portion of the genome that is not understood (see introns, for example).

Several problems emerge, the first and obvious being: what is this supposedly junk DNA supposed to do? The second is, if it does nothing, how did it get there in the first place? What evolutionary advantage might this extra DNA have?

This might be part of the legacy genes (how to make feathers, or how to make gills for example) or odds & ends shoved in the toolbox so that an organism might 'duct tape' its way out of a desperate spot. A mutant that fails to remove an intron here or there might reap an advantage.

It may also represent (at the same time even) DNA insinuations from viruses, Prions, and just debris uptake that expression knows how to isolate from doing harm.

 

[Agent Intellect]

Oh...


so INTP == genius.

Thanks dude.

I thought I was actually going to get the opposite response. I'm usually the one pointing out that INTP does not equal genius. I thought people would take this as me trying to prove my point.

2.) I've often wondered about this myself. I think that evolution (and I'll type as if evolution is a thinking being. I know this isn't the case, but it's easier) makes mistakes fairly often. As Charles Darwin said, any "mistake" that is a hindrance to feeding and reproducing will die out, as compared to positive traits flourishing. However, if evolution makes a mistake that is neither a hindrance nor a help, then it's really just a big coin toss as to whether it sticks around. Junk DNA doesn't hurt anybody (as far as I know), so simple chance determined that it stuck around.

Neutral mutations do happen. But something is only neutral until the environment changes - being tall may not mean much now, but if the environment changed so that being tall became beneficial, it wouldn't be neutral anymore.

I'm curious though, how much could neutral mutations have contributed to the diversity of life? Could neutral mutation explain something like an elephants trunk, or a turtles shell, or even having eyes?

5.) Imagine that there is no matter, only energy. If energy has mass, then it has gravity. The pure energy would coagulate into a ball. If all this energy, all the energy in the universe, were to squeeze itself into a ball, I think it'd eventually reach a point of infinite density and infinite smallness, which sets the stage for the big bang. Which, as we know, created plenty of matter.

How did the big bang create matter though? How did energy coagulating into a singularity and then exploding as the big bang turn it from energy into matter? E=mc^2 tells us that matter and energy can be converted (using the speed of light squared) but what's making energy slow down into matter?

7.) Actually, as an article in Discover magazine states, the average individual is actually getting less intelligent. We're losing brain mass. The average caveman had an entire tennis ball more of volume to his brain. This is because as a caveman, you have to be quick on your feet. Your survival depends on your ability to care for yourself, so they were naturally pretty sharp. As society develops, we have people to lean on, like friends and family. With this safety net, we become less independent, and lose this sharpness. I'll come back to this point. Also note that IQ tests mostly just note logic and pattern recognition, not so much other areas of intelligence. While the average caveman was witty, wit is not measured in an IQ test. As society developed, logic and pattern recognition is taught in schools and constantly reinforced as positive, making it a more common and advanced trait. So, I think that as society develops, the average person loses individuality, but gains skills in logic and pattern recognition. That being what an IQ test measures, the average IQ increases.

So the Flynn effect is just a side effect of the inadequacy of IQ tests? I would tend to agree, for the most part. I think there is some "hidden variable" about this though. Perhaps the over-stimulation of childrens minds from television, the internet, and the constant barrage of commercials during development causes them to see patterns in seemingly random images? Most of the IQ tests I've taken have been attempting to find patterns in various images. Perhaps kids are just getting better at seeing patterns in the images on IQ tests?

8.) Note, I know almost nothing about the principles of medicine, so I may sound like an idiot. But I'll give it a try. After an infection, some cells in the immune system may be damaged. It'll go on the equivalent of a drunken rampage and attack whatever it sees first. Say, the liver. Now, a way to simplify most computations in a large system is to make the small components take cues from each other. Instead of the brain telling each individual cell what to do, if an immune system cell starts attacking something, another cell will attack, too. Much quicker than waiting to go to the brain, then attack. So, when a cell sees a "drunken" cell attacking the liver, another cell does too. This spreads, and then your body is attacking itself unchecked.

Phagocytes detect intruders through antigens (proteins on the surface) of other cells. If they don't recognize the antigens, they will attack it. This is why blood type needs to be established before a transfusion, because if you have type B blood and you are given type A blood, your body will not recognize the type A glycoprotein and will attack it.

This is essentially what happens in an autoimmune reaction - the body doesn't recognize the antigens on the surface of an organs cells, and will attack it like a person with type B blood attacking type A blood.

So yes, you are correct. The immune system doesn't have to take it up with the brain before attacking intruders (or itself) and in fact will sometimes even attack the brain itself (Multiple Sclerosis; certain types of Guillain-Barre syndrome etc).

What's strange about autoimmune diseases is that, even though someone born to a parent with an autoimmune disease has a higher likelihood of also having an autoimmune disease, there isn't a known genetic cause, and it doesn't seem to even have a Mendelian probability. Some people will not begin having an autoimmune reaction until adulthood, while others will have it from a very young age. Sometimes it seems to be triggered by an infection, but it doesn't have to be. There doesn't seem to be a consistent cause.

But what causes the immune system to stop recognizing it's own tissues as part of itself?

This seems fairly straight forward to me. Every object that has mass exerts a gravitational tug on every other object of mass.

The inner stars enslaved by the black-hole's gravity tug on further away stars as they orbit past.

This not only drives them forward in the direction biased for in the galaxy's infancy, but it also shepherds them into a 'flatter' disk and maintains orbital position.

This is the same accretion disc dynamics
that starts any time dust & gas begin to gather to form: planets & moons, debris rings, solar systems, and galaxies.

The distances create a problem:

Recall that most galaxies have some basically spheroidal component. That is, they have
a region in which the stars move every which way (instead of basically in one direction,
like the Sun and its nearby fellow travelers) and thus the distribution is \fat" rather than
disklike. This is often called the \bulge" of spiral galaxies, and is basically the whole galaxy
in the case of ellipticals. As a result, one cannot characterize the motion of stars in a bulge
with a rotation speed (since some things move one way, and others in other ways), but we
can de¯ne a \velocity dispersion" by determining the square root of the average squared
speed. Yes, that sounds like the long way around, but notice that the average velocity is
close to zero because of the random movements. We use ¾ to indicate the velocity dispersion.
Lo and behold, there is a pretty tight correlation between the estimated mass of the black
hole and the velocity dispersion of the bulge/spheroid. The precise form of the correlation
(and credit for discovering it!) is the subject of an unusually rancorous dispute, but we'll
take the relation advocated by Tremaine et al. 2002 (ApJ, 574, 740):
MBH=M¯ = 108:13(¾=200 km s¡1)4:02 (1)
with relatively small error bars on the parameters. Figure 1 shows a recent plot of the data,
due to Jenny Greene of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
What does it all mean? At ¯rst, you might be tempted to think that this is pretty
obvious: of course bigger black holes will whip things around faster. However, we need to
consider an issue of scale, and in particular the so-called \radius of in°uence". This is the
distance out to which the black hole dominates the total mass; beyond rin°, most of the mass
is in stars and thus the SMBH contributes a minority of the gravity. For a SMBH mass M
and velocity dispersion Sigma, radius of influence = GM/Sigma^2. For the Galaxy, this turns out to be radius of influence = 3 pc.
In comparison, the Galactic bulge is roughly 1 kpc in radius. This means that the SMBH
directly affects only a very small fraction of the bulge!

(Source)

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

A lot of these are way too far out of my realms to even make guesses. I'm not really qualified to guess at the others either but here goes.

2. Let's say you are building a house. When you finish you are almost certain to have some left over materials that you might prudently store away somewhere. Now let's say you need to add an addition to your house. Alas, you have some spare materials from which to begin with! Maybe not a great analogy but close enough.

You have junk DNA and presumably so does your mate. You produce an offspring with a 3rd eye that sees in infrared (cool huh?). Where would such a mutation come from? Or rather, from what was it built? Neither you or your mate has a 3rd eye that sees regularly let alone in infrared so perhaps it came from your junk DNA combining with your mate's junk DNA to produce something heretofore unseen in your genetic history. Hope this makes some sense.

4. I've always believed we don't properly separate that which is nature and that which is nurture. Instead we tend to take behaviors and try and place them in one camp or the other. Laughter is an autonomic response but what causes laughter is part nature but goes beyond merely that. There are usually nurture influences as well although slapstick seems more universal and base.

Tha't all I got, requires more thought.

7. I'd like to be able to examine a test from 1980 and one from now before I can make a theory about this.

8. Perhaps there is something wrong with the organ(s) being attacked that cause them to give off signals that the immune system reads as both foreign and threat. It's possible this disease of the organ would be from within at the subcellular level rather than an outside pathogen. Since they are so common in developed countries, perhaps environmental damage is at play....something that has caused a mutation within the organs cells.

 

[OrionzRevenge]

However, we need to consider an issue of scale, and in particular the so-called \radius of in°uence". This is the distance out to which the black hole dominates the total mass; beyond rin°, most of the mass is in stars and thus the SMBH contributes a minority of the gravity.

In the end, I think this is exactly the reason we have to conclude its a mutual-effect phenomenon. If the galactic disk were a solid sheet of say glass, then we would have no problem at all sussing the source of motion as being centric -- but communicated outward through the disk.

 

[Awaken]

8. Perhaps there is something wrong with the organ(s) being attacked that cause them to give off signals that the immune system reads as both foreign and threat. It's possible this disease of the organ would be from within at the subcellular level rather than an outside pathogen. Since they are so common in developed countries, perhaps environmental damage is at play....something that has caused a mutation within the organs cells.

But the immune cells have been studied, and the mechanism at which they use to recognize self from nonself are from surface protein pattern differences. If what you are saying is true, then we should be able to find a difference between the patterns before and after the disease state in the same individual.

If we cannot, then perhaps it is an influence on the immune cell itself, and not the particular organ as you propose. Any other alternative would have to then question whether our understanding of how immune cells recognize self from nonself is complete.

I think that humans have highly developed brains. We have used our brains to try to circumvent natural selection. We do not want to die. We do not want our species to perfectly fit in with our environment by selecting for genetic traits that allow for this to happen. We respect the individuals right for survival to a certain extent and try our best to develop ways in which the individual may live long enough to at least procreate. This causes a dilemma as natural selection still wants to weed out things for a greater balance. It, still being a force on us, provides the energy in which immune cells are capable of attacking those cells that do not fit into this greater balance. The mechanism of which is what we would have to figure out in order to beat it at the game, but the game will continue by some other means.

 

[Agent Intellect]

A lot of these are way too far out of my realms to even make guesses. I'm not really qualified to guess at the others either but here goes.

People not bogged down in the accepted dogma may have a unique way of looking at things. This isn't so much about having a theory that you could take to the bank (or those writing grants) but about using available information and making connections and trying to see things in a different light.

2. Let's say you are building a house. When you finish you are almost certain to have some left over materials that you might prudently store away somewhere. Now let's say you need to add an addition to your house. Alas, you have some spare materials from which to begin with! Maybe not a great analogy but close enough.

You have junk DNA and presumably so does your mate. You produce an offspring with a 3rd eye that sees in infrared (cool huh?). Where would such a mutation come from? Or rather, from what was it built? Neither you or your mate has a 3rd eye that sees regularly let alone in infrared so perhaps it came from your junk DNA combining with your mate's junk DNA to produce something heretofore unseen in your genetic history. Hope this makes some sense.

This is something I've thought about before, too. What's interesting is that different repeating sequences of "junk DNA" at different lengths does have an affect on the coding DNA (promoters). Even more interesting (in my opinion) is that some of the junk DNA can be re-activated to turn on traits from the organisms evolutionary past, which would A) mean that some of it is evolutionary baggage and B) there are things in it that can be turned on/off to create novel mixes of traits.

The problem here (and this may be more of a problem with your analogy) is the idea of finishing the house and having leftovers. In evolution, a cell wasn't built out of a bunch of genes with a few spare genes that the builder had overestimated her need for.

That is, of course, unless your theory takes this into account?

4. I've always believed we don't properly separate that which is nature and that which is nurture. Instead we tend to take behaviors and try and place them in one camp or the other. Laughter is an autonomic response but what causes laughter is part nature but goes beyond merely that. There are usually nurture influences as well although slapstick seems more universal and base.

Tha't all I got, requires more thought.

I would agree that the nature/nurture argument is a false dichotomy. However, the field of evolutionary psychology is under fire as an explanation for the nature aspect - it's similar to the thinking that "micro-evolution" happens but "macro-evolution" doesn't; we're influenced by the genes we inherit from our parents, but those genes are not influenced by evolution.

I think it comes from people being repelled by the idea of genetic determinism: they think it means that we have no choice in our actions and that it means we're no different from simple animals that only follow instinct. I know for a fact there are people on this forum that think evolutionary psychology is erroneous, so I'm interested in hearing alternative explanations for the observations that led to it's inception.

8. Perhaps there is something wrong with the organ(s) being attacked that cause them to give off signals that the immune system reads as both foreign and threat. It's possible this disease of the organ would be from within at the subcellular level rather than an outside pathogen. Since they are so common in developed countries, perhaps environmental damage is at play....something that has caused a mutation within the organs cells.

So, perhaps the organs have a cancer-like mutation? A few problems. First, how did the mutation propagate through the entire organ so quickly? Horizontal gene transfer of some sort? Second, the mutation would had to have affected the gene that codes for the antigens on the cells membrane, and mutations are usually not so ubiquitous. Third, what triggers the organ to malfunction? It can't be completely environmental, since there is a genetic component. Also, autoimmune responses can be triggered by infection - perhaps the infection is somehow still held up inside the organ? Maybe the immune system is throwing everything it has at the infections stronghold, trying to get it out, and the tissue is battered like the rampart of an enemy fortress?

In the end, I think this is exactly the reason we have to conclude its a mutual-effect phenomenon. If the galactic disk were a solid sheet of say glass, then we would have no problem at all sussing the source of motion as being centric -- but communicated outward through the disk.

I would tend to agree that there must be something communicating the transfer of angular momentum, the problem is that gravity is insufficient as an explanation: "For a SMBH mass M and velocity dispersion Sigma, radius of influence = GM/Sigma^2. For the Galaxy, this turns out to be radius of influence=3pc. In comparison, the Galactic bulge is roughly 1 kpc in radius. This means that the SMBH directly affects only a very small fraction of the bulge!"

A possible candidate might be dark matter, but that's depending too much on an unknown phenomenon.

Also, accretion physics doesn't explain the galactic bulge near the center of the galaxy around the black hole, where stars do no orbit in a flat disk but instead move around the black hole in a chaotic sphere.

I think that humans have highly developed brains. We have used our brains to try to circumvent natural selection. We do not want to die. We do not want our species to perfectly fit in with our environment by selecting for genetic traits that allow for this to happen. We respect the individuals right for survival to a certain extent and try our best to develop ways in which the individual may live long enough to at least procreate. This causes a dilemma as natural selection still wants to weed out things for a greater balance. It, still being a force on us, provides the energy in which immune cells are capable of attacking those cells that do not fit into this greater balance. The mechanism of which is what we would have to figure out in order to beat it at the game, but the game will continue by some other means.

This still fits within natural selection. As we overpopulate and use up resources, we'll eventually eat ourselves out of house and home. This will cause a massive die off of humans, except those best suited to survive whatever wasteland we've turned our environment into.

The same basic idea happened to Yellowstone when the wolves were hunted to annihilation there: the herbivores had a field day on all the vegetation, bred like wildfire, and used up all the resources. This caused a massive die off. As usual, when it comes to evolution, this is just taking a long time, and therefore people don't think it's really happening.

We have to remember that natural selection is not a force, but a process - it's a feedback mechanism. Just like when ATP becomes highly concentrated in a cell and inhibits phosphofructoskinase, having too many organisms will "inhibit" the production of anymore until the population is brought down.

There is nothing pushing "fit organisms" to live and "unfit organisms" to die off. If the environment changes so that people somewhere on the autism spectrum are better suited to survival (maybe being a social organism isn't suitable to the environment anymore) then being autistic would confer fitness. Such is the benefit of having a highly diverse gene pool (and why eugenics is just bad genetics).

 

[Da Blob]

first an observation, the mental activity associated with theorizing rarely results in a real theory. It is really quite amazing, if one steps back and looks at it, at how much of our mental capital is spent in an often doomed effort at predicting the Future or explaining the Past to confirm rather than deny our philosophy. There really is no other way to justify such musings about the Past. The Past is not the domain of Science, but merely philosophy.

As i opposed to the Popular myth of the Big Bang I propose another, our universe is formed of matter from the debris of another universe spewed from the unobservable outgoing poles of black holes in an ongoing process. The sigma is the speed of light of the next universe in the sequence into which the matter of this universe is being taken via the conduits of black holes...

The bubble thing is a matter of equilibrium - Boyle's Law extended.

evolutionary psychology is a popular politically-correct fad. It is based upon any number of unverifiable assumptions about the origins of human behavior...

I will be Back...lol

 

[Vrecknidj]

Evolutionary Psychology

I recommend Sarah Hrdy's book Mother Nature. I make it required reading in one of my courses. It's brilliant.

Dave

 

[gcomeau]

2. Junk DNA.
While a lot of research since the term was coined has found various purposes for parts of the genome that do not code for proteins (leading to re-naming it to non-coding DNA) there is still a large portion of the genome that is not understood (see introns, for example).

Several problems emerge, the first and obvious being: what is this supposedly junk DNA supposed to do? The second is, if it does nothing, how did it get there in the first place? What evolutionary advantage might this extra DNA have?

None of the listed problems seem to qualify as problems. In order...

There is no requirement in evolution for all of the genetic code to be *supposed* to do anything at all. The mere fact that much of this genetic material used to be termed "junk" without evolutionary biologists or geneticists batting an eye should be all that is necessary to tell you that one or another bit of genetic code not having a function is no problem at all. If it doesn't do anything it doesn't do anything, it's still going to get reproduced right along with the rest of the DNA that does serve a function.

As for how it got there in the first place, the same way the rest of the genetic code got there in the first place. Chemistry. It's not as if DNA is produced one fuinctional gene at a time ond only sequences that do things ever get formed. Random bits and pieces of non coding genetic sequences are constantly being formed. A functional gene gets copied then deactivated by a mutation... some random string of amino acids gets spliced in somewhere... etc...

What function *might* it have? Assuming it has any at all, which it certainly doesn't need to, it could have a regulating effect on gene expression or who knows what else... but that's hardly a problem either.