If Mort Divine ruled the world

[CiG]

I suppose I just think it's bullshit that Jeremy Corbyn can be the leader of the Labour Party and say these things, but if Theresa May did the right-wing equivalent I have a gut feeling it would be a national scandal.

It'd be great if politics were less politically correct when it comes to the public arena as I think an open and honest discourse which involves communism and fascism as non-taboo subjects would be really healthy.

Something like that.

 

[rms]

just to get your attention

you listen to these recent Sam Harris podcasts about gene development?

https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/the-moral-complexity-of-genetics

 

[Einherjar86]

Mukherjee's position on genetics is highly contested. There's an article in Nature about a piece he wrote for The New Yorker some time ago. Stirred up a lot of controversy.

http://www.nature.com/news/researcher-under-fire-for-new-yorker-epigenetics-article-1.19874

Steve Henikoff, a geneticist and molecular biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington, was quoted on Coyne’s blog: “Mukherjee seemed not to realize that transcription factors occupy the top of the hierarchy of epigenetic information,” he wrote. “Histone modifications at most act as cogs in the machinery.”

Coyne’s two blog posts about The New Yorker article each gathered more than 100 comments, many of them from scientists. Richard Mann, a molecular biologist and biophysicist at Columbia University Medical Center in New York City, noted that the article mentioned histones 26 times without a single mention of the word transcription. “Only a talmudic-like reading can reveal a hint that something other than histone modifications are at play.”

In a response published on the website of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, California, Mukherjee thanked his critics for their “immensely detailed comments”. Speaking to Nature, Mukherjee says that, after re-reading the story, he felt that he put too much emphasis on the “speculative” roles of histone modification and DNA methylation. “This was an error,” he says, adding that a mention of transcription factors could have helped to avoid “an unnecessarily polarizing reading of the piece”. He says that The New Yorker is “very likely” to run a response.

Not to discredit Mukherjee, who's an intelligent person. But many of his ideas generate disagreement (as ideas should--just wanted to share). Haven't listened to the podcast yet, have to check it out.

 

[rms]

i haven't noticed any of those words in the podcast, but admitting you made a mistake in your argument is pretty awesome so that's a plus

 

[Dak]

Listening to that pod-cast now, pretty good. I appreciate that Harris interviewed Murray in an evenhanded manner and is now dismissive of the unsubstantiated, unprofessional hysteria and vitriol surrounding the man.

 

[Einherjar86]

i haven't noticed any of those words in the podcast, but admitting you made a mistake in your argument is pretty awesome so that's a plus

Okay then.

I think it's interesting that Eternal Metal and I were both trying to explain the same thing to you, and yet somehow you see yourself as being in agreement with him and not me.

 

[rms]

havent read his original piece nor anything but the excerpt but none of that seems to counter or address either of our points. in fact, I think EternalMetal and I agreed more than you and I did, as I do not agree with your framing of evolutionary history. Maybe this is all wrong, havent thought about that conversation since the last reply and had finals week after it

 

[Einherjar86]

havent read his original piece nor anything but the excerpt but none of that seems to counter or address either of our points. in fact, I think EternalMetal and I agreed more than you and I did

I think the points of agreement varied among the three of us, but I was in agreement with EM on several of the points he was trying to convey to you (which you readily agreed with, although you seemed to think that I believed differently).

as I do not agree with your framing of evolutionary history. Maybe this is all wrong, havent thought about that conversation since the last reply and had finals week after it

I don't want to return to it--it's hashed.

And you can disagree with my framing of evolutionary history, but it's not an uninformed position. Our main point of contention is the degree to which environment directly influences mutation. I believe that environment shapes evolution only to the extent that it provides the conditions in which mutations can flourish; it cannot infiltrate the genome and engineer future mutations (and I don't think Harris would try and make this claim, but maybe I'm wrong). It seemed, at times, like you were really insisting on this.

 

[rms]

infiltrate I would say yes.

engineer, as in, it's an entity that chooses what and how to mutate? no.

does that infiltration facilitate mutations that would not have happened without that infiltration? I believe yes. is it all focused, or directed? no

 

[Dak]

From my limited understanding of the field as a non-geneticist, I'm pretty sure the fact that environment does in fact affect in particular the expression of genes, phenotypically, which then has at least an indirect effect on transmission, if there is no direct effect. In the process of expression and the replication of DNA, it makes sense to include "mis-expressions" ie mutations in this proces. In short, environment does influence mutation as well as providing the condition which rewards certain expressions and transcription errors (mutations).

 

[rms]

??? being heterosexual isn't normal? i've gone too far into twitter today

 

[Baroque]

Any twitter is too far into twitter

 

[Einherjar86]

infiltrate I would say yes.

engineer, as in, it's an entity that chooses what and how to mutate? no.

does that infiltration facilitate mutations that would not have happened without that infiltration? I believe yes. is it all focused, or directed? no

This is the disagreement.

I simply don't think you need to claim this degree of infiltration (since I used this word, we'll stick with it--maybe there's a better one) in order to have, as you put it, "mutations that would not have happened without that infiltration." I think the successful mutations that we witness among organisms are entirely explainable as chance phenomena, to which a specific environment proved conducive. I don't think we can observe any greater degree of environmental infiltration in an organism's genome, and so I'm hesitant to admit it.

 

[rms]

I don't think we can observe any greater degree of environmental infiltration in an organism's genome, and so I'm hesitant to admit it.

your position seems to argue that any mutation can occur in any environment and we only notice those mutations because they are deemed better for survival in that space and time. I cannot imagine that is true

 

[Einherjar86]

I understand, but it's a perfectly plausible explanation. I have difficulty imagining your proposed alternative if only because I'm not convinced we can observe that degree of environmental infiltration. The kinds of variability we find among organisms seems, to me, to be achievable purely through happenstance, which is then enabled or inhibited by environmental factors.

It dawns on me that the organism/environment distinction is not one I'm entirely comfortable with, and would have to read more about. But I can't speak any more extensively about that now.

 

[EternalMetal]

@rms - Damn, I really wish I had the time to analyze this further, as im currently trying to pack for my trip to MDF. To be completely honest with you, I avoided the discussion of epigenetics in the previous discussion for a few reasons; one, it adds further complication to a debate already rife with confusion. Two, the depth of epigenetic control is still not fully understood. Three, the depth of what is understood is a bit esoteric and hard to explain. Im not exactly an "expert" on the topic, but I did do graduate level work at a research lab that was involved with epigenetic mechanisms for a number of years, so I do have a thorough understanding of a fair amount of the known science.

havent read his original piece nor anything but the excerpt but none of that seems to counter or address either of our points. in fact, I think EternalMetal and I agreed more than you and I did, as I do not agree with your framing of evolutionary history. Maybe this is all wrong, havent thought about that conversation since the last reply and had finals week after it

I think the points of agreement varied among the three of us, but I was in agreement with EM on several of the points he was trying to convey to you (which you readily agreed with, although you seemed to think that I believed differently).

This in bold tbh. Im still unsure as to exactly where rms's opinion stands.

QUOTE="Einherjar86, post: 11378547, member: 85498"]
Our main point of contention is the degree to which environment directly influences mutation. I believe that environment shapes evolution only to the extent that it provides the conditions in which mutations can flourish; it cannot infiltrate the genome and engineer future mutations (and I don't think Harris would try and make this claim, but maybe I'm wrong). It seemed, at times, like you were really insisting on this.[/QUOTE]

Yes. I still stand behind traditional evolution theory when it comes to the idea that the environment drives selection. Just because there are environmental feedback mechanisms intertwined with the genetic code does not change this. As a white man my skin still tans, but I am clearly not as adapted to a tropical environment with lots of sun as someone with naturally dark skin. Epigenetic mechanisms such as the ones proposed by Mukherjee simply prove that genes can be resilient, but there are still limitations (which is why evolutionary theory still reigns supreme).

 

[rms]

yeah, i gotta listen to it too. had it on while eating/chilling after the gym and realized it needed proper attention. There's a part about half way through where I think the guest touches on our topic and that's what reminded me of this convo. I don't think overall it was about our convo though. Harris gets more skeptical/critical of the guests argument in the latter half too

 

[Dak]

yeah, i gotta listen to it too. had it on while eating/chilling after the gym and realized it needed proper attention. There's a part about half way through where I think the guest touches on our topic and that's what reminded me of this convo. I don't think overall it was about our convo though. Harris gets more skeptical/critical of the guests argument in the latter half too

I listened to it, and I was disappointed in Mukherjee's regurgitated deflections of concerns. They are comprised of two points, as I will present them in what will be obviously critiqued by some as strawmanning. 1: Definitions are circular (well duh). 2: Definitions have fuzziness (well duh). Now, the strawmanning complaints will consist on resistance to the equivocation of conceptualizations as definitions. Yet, that is in fact what they are in practice, if one wants to examine what definitions are in a dictionary. How well tests measure a concept is to be debated, but not the concept, unless no test even remotely measures a concept. Secondly, "fuzziness" is inherent to any definition. There are always margins.

 

[Oblivious Maximus]

Police arrest Eric Clanton after bike lock assaults during Berkeley protests

 

[CiG]

Nice.