Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!caip!think!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Newsgroups: net.sci Subject: Re: Population control & Freedom Message-ID: <1173@cybvax0.UUCP> Date: Sat, 4-Oct-86 20:22:49 EDT Article-I.D.: cybvax0.1173 Posted: Sat Oct 4 20:22:49 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 8-Oct-86 21:59:13 EDT References: <564@gargoyle.UUCP> <26500108@inmet> <1167@cybvax0.UUCP> <267@prometheus.UUCP> Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA Lines: 83 In article <267@prometheus.UUCP> pmk@prometheus.UUCP (Paul M Koloc) writes: > In article <1167@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes: > >If you and Jan weren't so abysmally ignorant of biology, you wouldn't bother > >defending Jan's nonsensical position.. . > > Hubby, cut the cute petty comments, please; it's a real drag to wade > through the "lower elementary level, "Gene and Bob are stupid but I'm > so great I'll just answer them anyway". The comments are accurate: if you don't believe me, read up on the subject. Genetics and molecular biology are hard sciences, unlike the usual stomping grounds of Jan and nrh. Their statements about creating genetic diversity were comparable to claiming flies arise from dead horses by spontaneous generation. And for someone anxious to "raise the level" of argument, you do pretty poorly. "Hubby" indeed. > And, Mike conjectures: If you weren't also ignorant of biology, you'd know better, sweetie. I was a Plant Breeding major at Cornell. If you don't believe in my expertise, feel free to learn something to try to refute it. > >Cross breeding: Very simply, cross breeding reassorts genes; it doesn't > >produce any new ones. The benefits of cross breeding are only possible > >if you have genetic diversity of parent stocks. Here Jan has put the > >cart in front of the horse. > > Hmmm?. What is cross breeding, some kind of bizarre Christian ritual? > I always thought it implied "diversity". For example, aren't apples > and pears different species? But isn't there a third species that was > developed from the cross breeding of certain families of apples and > pairs?? And, what's the story on zebras and horses and their cross. The answer lies in the paragraph you cited above. But I'll rephrase it very simply so that you can understand it: copies of genes come from the mommies and daddies. Hybridization is not a miracle: new genes are not spontaneously formed by hybridization. > >Artificial habitats: No habitat creates genetic diversity: > > Said while reading his old net news articles to his two headed > great grand children who were all basking in the warm glow from > the walls of his underground home in the abandoned radium mine. You're pathetic and dishonest, Paul. You had to break my sentence to make it look like I missed the obvious. The missing part after the colon is: "a habitat can only select among diversity from parent stock or mutation." > There is no question that genes can be broken with sufficient > energy (environmental change). Heat, cold, radiation, chemistry, > can all effect mutation. Even interesting but bizarre mutation > in "low quality" stuff can be salvaged with "good breeding" some > of the time. What our fore bearers did in a few thousand years > with cotton, maze, water buffalo, rice, dogs, etc. can be greatly > accelerated and although much greater progress needs to be made I > feel we can and will do it and within only two or three more > thousand years. The real problem is not just survival, but > survival as a viable progressive and forward thinking species. Oh wow, that's SO soul-stirring that I could puke. The question is: should we throw away genetic diversity that is the product of millions of years of evolution? You seem to be saying "yes, if it obstructs the progress of the race, and anyway we can probably make more later." Well "whoopie". You can take meaningless (or self-serving) phrases like "viable progressive and forward thinking" [sic] and stick them where the sun don't shine, for all the use they have in a rational argument. Nor do I consider it wise to throw away things on a vague likelihood (or even more unreliable, your feelings) that we'll be able to recreate them later. -- Strephon: "Have you the heart to apply the prosaic rules of evidence to a case brimming with such poetical emotion?" Chancellor: "Distinctly." From "Iolanthe", by Gilbert and Sullivan. -- Mike Huybensz ...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh