Parallel Evolution

I’m no biologist but it does seem obvious that animals did not evolve from plants ... nor mammals from reptiles. Most probably, life began on Earth not just in one spot at just one point in time ... a Garden of Eden so to speak. Rather, to me, there were likely millions of Edens over possibly millions of years which produced many multiple varieties of life ... many with some similarities ... many of which died out ... but many of which then evolved separately, ala Darwin, into the panoply of life we experience today.

Recent DNA studies combined with mathematical models suggest that all the animal and plant species that exist today, could not have evolved since the Earth cooled down using Darwin’s explanation alone. So perhaps my uneducated hypothesis, “parallel evolution,” may be one resolution  to this dilemma ... other than “intelligent design” that is. (This also suggest that the process of life’s creation is ... was? ... a lot more natural than previously thought.)

Perhaps?


STAND UP FOR AMERICA!

Obvious Truth

The quickest and easiest path to great wealth may not be via a PhD or MBA ... but through one’s DNA.

And Epstein didn’t off himself.

Today’s Poser

Mayor Pete, in order to ingratiate himself with black voters, is now calling for reparations. This obviously opens up a can of night crawlers. Viz: If a black person has DNA proving that he/she is only 1/4 African-American, does this person get only a 25% reparations share? And, moreover, does his/her 75% non-black DNA owe reparations to the remaining portion?

Settled Science

Einstein was a very bright fellow. He understood that science is never settled ... old theories will forever be replaced by newer, more informed ones. Therefore Galileo’s notion of gravity as a simple undiscriminating force of nature, later updated by Newton’s Law which included relative masses, could be debunked by calling it a “warp in the space-time continuum.” Sometime in the future, Einstein will be debunked by some upstart scientist ... an on and on into the indefinite future.

Is this wrong? Why can’t science be forever settled? Simple. Because we keep discovering new things. Darwin is being relegated to the dustbin of history by advances in DNA science. So is Freud by advances in brain science. And so will be other Nobel Prize winning scientist for as long as these Norwegians believe that we have found the ultimate answer to anything “scientific.” (Global warming?)

And this is not bad. It is the way science works ... and will continue to work. The thing that might worry me is what happens when scientists get it wrong. Did we really understand everything about nuclear fission before we tested that first A-bomb? I kind of doubt it ... but the best minds turned out to be right enough that we didn’t annihilate ourselves.

But there are many things about atomic energy production that we still don’t understand. Does this mean we should stop our quest for harnessing this fundamental energy source? Of course not! But we should insist that we not rush into (or away from) scientific conclusions based upon any uninformed political motivations.

Know what I mean?

Headlines

Cory Booker didn't announce first. But that doesn't mean he is behind

Car loan rates rising quickly, despite the Fed holding rates steady

Pelosi: No wall money ever ... Botches words, suffers facial spasms, confuses Dems, GOP ...

Muslim leaders reject call  to denounce 'violent' Koran

Kamala Harris' crusade against 'revenge porn'

January jobs report: Hiring remains solid, despite government shutdown

Feds charge 19 in Chinese 'birth tourism' scheme ...

U.S. mulls sanctions against Turkey for trading with Venezuela

Trump makes it official: U.S. to leave missile treaty with Russia

Trump: 'There is a good chance we'll have to' declare a national emergency to build the wall

Sperm bank freaks after woman uses DNA test, finds donor ...

Saudi Arabia concludes corruption probe, banks over $100 billin

Headlines

Warren hits back at Trump, releases DNA test 'strongly' supporting Native American heritage

Microsoft co-founder Pail Allen dies of cancer at age 65

Bezos predicts 1 trillion humans in solar system ...

Poll: Nevada turns away from Democrats post-Kavanaugh

Dems fume as GOP advances Trump's judicial picks during Senate recess

Even optimists are giving up hope for a quick resolution of the US-China  trade war

New [illegal alien] caravan heads toward U.S. border: Doubles in size ...

Mueller's Russian probe losing relevance to midterm voters

Judge dismisses Stormy Daniels lawsuit against Trump

Don't expect a big Democratic wave this fall, new CNBC poll suggests

Beto, Crux set for [debate] showdown ...

Bernie Sander's declines to condemn harassment, violence against Republicans

World Peace

Violence and conflict are deeply embedded in mankind's DNA. World peace will likely only ever be accomplished through genetic engineering.

Headlines

Headlines from Internet news sites. Guess which ones came from Polutico.

Christie, New Jersey lawmakers reach deal to end three-day shutdown

There won't be gender restrictions at 2018 Olympics

NKorea launches ballistic missile ... could reach Alaska

Obama on the global stage: 'Liberal international order ... is the only choice'

Trump offers help to terminally-ill l U.K. boy

Duke University admits using faked data to obtain millions in gov't grants

Playboy [magazine] models detained in Mexico

GOP Sen. candidate calls out Elizabeth Warren for refusing DNA ancestry test

Maryland AG says Trump voter commission request violates state law

Bernie Sanders attacks Fox News

Canada to apologize, pay former Gitmo prisoner

Krauthammer on [Trump CNN video] tweet: 'I think he's trolling the press'

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

New EU 'travel tax' ...

Obama and Merkel: Globalization is here to stay

Axelrod tells transition critics to chill ...

Thanksgiving meal much cheaper: Turkey prices drop ...

DNA breakthrough could 'fix broken genes in brain, delay aging' ...

Paris Hilton: 'I voted for Trump'

London's Muslim Mayor urges anti-Trump migrants to flock to UK

War on Christmas: Saudis ban international schools from observing non-Islamic holidays

Department of Education wasting money at an incredible rate ...

Switzerland considers banning Koran distributions

Obama sets new record for regulations, 527 pages in just one day

Apple may produce IPhones in USA ...

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites:

Grinning Obama jokes through Munich presser

CNN hides own poll number! 75% react positively to Trump speech

BBC scrubs 'Ali' from Munich killer's name

Turkey arrests 62 schoolchildren for TREASON

Wasserman dropped from convention

Obama [half-]brother voting for Donald ...

Scientists move one step closer to creating Harry Potter's invisibility cloak

Police use DNA from half-eaten burger to catch suspect

ISIS Afghan attack: 80 killed, 231 wounded

[Governor] McAuliffe's voting rights for felons defeated in VA Supreme Court

Turkey seizes 2,250 institutions in post coup crackdown

$1 billion Medicare bust in Florida ... 'biggest health-care fraud case ever'

What? More Headlines!

Pot alters DNA ... mutations ...

Vandals Deface Vietnam War Memorial

Central American gangs use FACEBOOK to hunt victims

NYC to start issuing 'high salt' fines

About 100,000 in U.S. now work for Chinese firms

Woman wearing 'Stop Domestic Violence' t-shirt -- arrested for domestic violence

The sisters that used to be brothers

Man arrested after applying for a loan ... to buy meth

[Oberlin] students demand end to midterms ... all grades below 'C'

Hillary Clinton releases plan to dissolve U.S. border within [first] 100 days

Chinese commercial advertises detergent strong enough to wash off black skin

Gene Genome

Mind-boggling discussions are being held at Harvard about the possibility of synthesizing a complete human genome ... in other words, playing God by creating test-tube human life to our liking ... see: New York Times Article. Basically, scientists think that, within 10 years, they will be able to not just read (which they have been able to do for years), but write the entire three billion DNA sequences comprising the human genome ...  a remarkable achievement and one that means that the resulting manufactured human would be not the result of natural selection, but of unnatural selection.

The thing I am worried about is that it is believed that only about 10% of these chemical pairs have real use in the resulting human. The other 2.7 billion are effectively inert. What if things are more complicated than that? What if some pairs only have meaning in the presence of other pairs? It seems immensely wasteful for evolution to have spent so much effort at all these meaningless encodings. Science should have a much more detailed knowledge of our genome before we begin creating new life.

And , if we did have perfect knowledge, it is quite probable that, when reconstructing say Einstein's 3 billion chemical pairs, one or more DNA sequence errors will also be made. What might we have then? Frank-Einstein? I am not saying that such science should be shut down ... because we have repeatedly seen that the March of Science cannot be stopped by ethical concerns. Science must explore the unexplored ... no matter what the consequences. I just think that we should trod very carefully into this new arena lest we do something that cannot be undone.

Perhaps when the time does come, we might name the first fully manufactured human ... Gene Genome?

Black Eye

What is happening in Ferguson, Missouri is sad but typical of the human lot. We homo sapiens act before all the facts are known ... and, even when we start to know the facts, if they don't agree with the then-established popular narrative, we still often ignore them.

One can watch this failing being repeated in this suburb of St. Louis ... a cop shoots and kills an "unarmed black 'gentle giant' who was trying to surrender with his hands up" and a racially-motivated series of spontaneous demonstrations occur ... then riots .... then looting ... then shootings and arrests ... then wall-to-wall media coverage ... then ill-informed comments by politicians and spot-light grabbers ... then come the race baiters and the professional agitators ... then professional football teams show solidarity with the dead man ... then (all too) slowly the facts seem to be emerging ... many of which contradict the original story.

This same kind of scenario was frequently repeated in the South during the reign of Jim Crow ... often resulting in lynchings, another form of mob injustice. It took many generations and a book about the death of a mockingbird to dispel these atrocities.

What happens next in Ferguson? Either quality leadership takes hold and sanity slowly returns to the situation ... or such leadership takes a hike (or plays golf) and this ugliness can grow to frightening national proportions. Then, it is not just the policeman shooter who gets a black eye in this tragedy (see: NY Post Story), but most others involved too ... the neighborhood, the media, the local police, the state police, the state governor, our Justice Department, our national leaders, our president.

How many times does this silliness need to be repeated? I guess I answered this question in my firsts sentence ... apparently it's in our DNA ... maybe after some more generations and a book?

"A lie travels halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to put its pants on." -- Winston Churchill

Time Travel

Almost three years!  That is a very long time for a deteriorating old man (me) … and for a rapidly disintegrating country (the USA) to endure. President Obama has almost three more years of malignant mischief-making in which to vex many of us with his folksy haughtiness, his managerial inattention, his foreign-policy screw-ups, his self-righteous preaching, his corrupt posse, and his profligate spending. I think Ann Coulter hit the nail on the head when she said, “If Obama was trying to destroy this country, what would he be doing any differently?”

But in a very strange way what President Obama is now bulldozing may end up being beneficial for us.  His reign of destruction (aka, "hope and change") may be similar to the early twentieth-century Dadaist art movement and its raucous nihilism ... which fostered some of the most innovative art in centuries.  His attempted razing of many of the pillars upon which this country was founded and prospered has caused many of us to rethink our purpose and rededicate our lives.  The Tea-Party movement is symptomatic of the grass-roots resurrection of what was once great in America. There is, I believe a creative cleansing to take place among the rubble of what Obama is now working.  

Many in the current establishment and media can't or won't sense this resurrection ... but our younger generations will soon compare what we have become to what we once were ... and re-learn those things to be cherished. I firmly believe it's in our DNA. Just as Abraham Lincoln talked about a “new birth of freedom,” I judge that we will be, once our Fearless Leader leaves office, ready to rid Washington of much of the political pollution that persists there.  Of course all may not be repaired, but I pray that enough will be fixed that our country might have another few hundred years of freedom-loving and innovative time travel ... which isn't, I think, what Obama had in mind.

Afterward: If what I am herein predicting does indeed come about, I suspect that some historians of a liberal bent ... of which there are many ... will say that this was what Obama was about all along. Note to any future readers ... don't believe it!  

Entropy

I am taking a sidetrack today and dipping into one of my other blogs ... Junkier Science ... to present another take on science.  I hope you enjoy it.

Many scientists predict that the universe will eventually wind down into a permanent state of entropy. That is, all forms of energy (or activity) will have decentralized themselves and all semblance of cosmic (and maybe even atomic) order will have disappeared. A scientific internet website’s definition of entropy is: “Energy spontaneously disperses from being localized to becoming spread out if it is not hindered from doing so.” (Remember, energy doesn’t really disappear. There is still the thermodynamic law that states that all energy is preserved either in its kinetic form, its potential form, or as electromagnetic radiation.)

Therefore entropy is a complete state of chaos where electromagnetic radiation and energy still exist but are so dispersed as to be effectively non-existent at a singular point. Eventually (billions and billions of years hence), all suns will have burned out … all planetary motion will have ceased … and all knowledge will have been lost. Thus, the antonym for entropy could be (and often is) stated as “organized information”. But, I have a somewhat different take on entropy’s antonym -- I think it is “evolution”. If entropy is the ultimate winding down of information … then evolution is the spontaneous winding up of order … encoded into the billions of DNA chemical pairs of millions of species on this earth (and perhaps on millions of other earth-like planets.) This is complimented by the quadrillions of bytes of information that is stored in our printed and electronic libraries – all enabled by the information encoded in the DNA of humans.

This makes evolution even more unique and, yes, precious – it is a guppy swimming upstream against the tsunami of ever-growing entropy. Thus, there is a race to the death, albeit a multi-billion year race, between physical entropy and biological evolution. I have no idea which one will win this race, but I suspect that our eventual fate is not as predetermined as many today predict.