Reverse evolution

[RSNorman]

An interesting (at least to me) case of reverse evolution was recently
described in BMC Biology (full text free)
http://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-016-0284-z

Parasitism is ordinarily thought to be an irreversible life style
because parasites ordinarily lose functions needed to live
independently. The paper describes a case where a free-living
organism (diplomonad, a flagellated protist group including Giardia)
is deeply nested evolutionarily among parasites and hence almost
certainly redeveloped the free-living life style from a parasitic
ancestor. Not only is this reversal of life-style itself interesting
but so is the means: The species studied, a member of Trepomonas,
seems to have acquired most of its metabolic capabilities by gene
transfer from bacterial genes.

So this is a violoation of "Dollo's law of irreversibility" in its
original form: "An organism is unable to return, even partially, to a
previous stage already realized in the ranks of its ancestors."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollo%27s_law_of_irreversibility
However it does not violate a looser interpretation of the law which
requires the reversal to return to the same earlier stage in the same
form. This is a return to the life style but mediated by a different
set of enzymes to do the work. Still, parasitism has ordinarily been
considered irreversible. Now it would have to be restated "parasitism
is pretty much irreversible."

Biology wins again: "no matter what you say about biology, some weird
species somewhere will prove you wrong."

[eridanus]

I can imagine a reversion of human evolution towards some form of primate
living again in forest.
It requires some conditions

1) Collapse of this technical civilization
2) a fast backwards march towards medieval technology
3) the arrival of a new ice age
4) the people with more brawn than brain become dominant.
5) most of the delicate intelligent humans become extinct
6) only the most stupid but strong hominids survive the ice age.
7) they are in the brink of extinction
8) the ice age last some 120,000 years
9) a new interstadial comes again.
10) hominids began to feed on the trees again
11) hominids are becoming like chimps and getting adapted to climb on the trees, and even many grow dark hair on their skin.

eri

[rsNorman]

eridanus <leopoldo...@gmail.com> Wrote in message:

Very imaginative, I grant you. Beyond the piling on of rather a
large number of very specific catastrophes, you might realize
that many very strong, brawny, people are quite intelligent and
many intelligent people are quite brawny. Also you don't give
any reason why feeding in forests would be better than foraging
and hunting in fields and coastlines and rivers and lakes and
very diverse habitats.

--


----Android NewsGroup Reader----
http://usenet.sinaapp.com/

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 19 Aug 2016 20:07:12 -0400 (EDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by rsNorman
<r_s_n...@comcast.net>:

Ain't stereotyping wunnerful?

> Also you don't give
> any reason why feeding in forests would be better than foraging
> and hunting in fields and coastlines and rivers and lakes and
> very diverse habitats.

I'd say it's much worse; true climax forests, at least
temperate ones, are almost devoid of any life other than
mature trees. So unless we developed both an arboreal
lifestyle *and* the ability to live on bark and leaves we'd
be sort of SOL.

FWIW, "edges" (boundaries between different habitats) are
*much* better as places to live, as anyone who's ever hunted
small game knows.
--

Bob C.

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"

- Isaac Asimov

[rsNorman]

Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> Wrote in message:

The edge business is quite true, taking advantage of both habitats
as well as the numerous critters that are doing the same.


However climax forests do have an abundance of things. Just not
the ones we are accustomed to looking for.

[RonO]

Did they cite the recent water bear fiasco where the researchers mis
assembled the genome and included bacterial DNA that was contaminating
the sample.

The Next Gen tech gives you a lot of sequence, but it is in short reads
that if you do not have a reference genome already built you can put the
wrong pieces together.

So they likely should have cited that example and demonstrated that they
made sure that they didn't do the same thing.

Ron Okimoto

[rsNorman]

RonO <roki...@cox.net> Wrote in message:

The authors describe in some detail how they eliminated bacterial
contamination. The full text of the paper is available at the
site I give above and you are far more qualified than I am to
evaluate their methods. They discuss the length of fragments but
also use a peculiarity in the genetic code for this particular
organism also to eliminate contaminants.



--

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 20 Aug 2016 15:36:56 -0400 (EDT), the following

Well, yeah; my comment was a bit too general. Mature trees,
fungus growths of various sorts, earthworms, insects and
even a few "higher" sorts which live on them - newts, etc.
But very little in the way of plant diversity or animal food
sources of the type generally found in more open areas. And
I stand by my claim that survival of any significant human
population in such a forest would be unlikely, although the
presence of waterways would help.

[rsNorman]

Birds and rodents and a variety of insectivores and a pretty good
diversity of leaf litter beasties. Not at all a good place for
humans to earn a living. As a proper biologist I just took issue
with "almost devoid of life"

In any event, humans reverting to chimps is pretty much a no-go.



--

[Glenn]

"rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:npcvo3$ljp$1...@dont-email.me...

I thought we *were* apes.

[rsNorman]

"Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid> Wrote in message:

Indeed we were and still are. You might want to indicate in some
way why that is at all relevant. Or is it simply one more in a
long line of inane quips?

[jillery]

On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 13:22:00 -0700, "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

And how 'bout them Mets.
--
This space is intentionally not blank.

[Glenn]

"jillery" <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:3p5krbdfedsonmnp9...@4ax.com...

Explain that.

[jillery]

On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 15:27:46 -0700, "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

Explain what your comment has to do with anything posted previously in
this topic.

[wdm...@verizon.net]

First let me thank you for the original post on the thread. Very interesting, and to me another example of Orgel's Second rule.

As you stated, humans aren't going to revert to chimps, because we never were chimps. But I agree that we are also not going to revert to arboreal apes, especially not in temperate climax forests. Perhaps we might exploit abandoned orchards, but not as tree dwellers.

[eridanus]

It all depends on the nature and dimensions of the catastrophe. Passing
through some sort of "on the brink extinction" it is possible that some
very hardy people would have the amount of qualities needed to survive,
and this would not implied but a minimum of intelligence. Just imagine
during a glacial age, humans lost the capacity of making fire. Then,
adding to the scarcity of finding food, or hunting something, even the
scarcity of finding or eating dead animals, after a few million years
it start a new era of strong heat and plenty of rains. All the lands
are covered by forests. Most of the food is found in forest and are
basically fruits. Well, they are very few surviving hominids, they can
become primates again. A new evolution backwards. Dry, colder climate,
destroyed most of the primeval forest some 8 million years ago. They
become hominids and eventually humans. But in my hypothesis, a handful
of surviving humans had evolved so sturdy that barely have intelligence.
It is then, that they can evolve back to become primates. I do not see
any problem to imagine this.
Evolution has not any privileged direction. Can go forward or backwards.
eri

[eridanus]

SOL? what is means?
not only small game, even big game cannot live under a thick
forest.
eri

[eridanus]

A thick forest in high latitudes is quite different to one in lower
latitudes, bellow 30 degrees. It can be different. If humans were almost
extinct after some glacial age, could exist only near the equator.Surviving
in some traditional hunter gatherer way. But if rains and heat become
a determinant, the had to come back to the forest. They had lost all
of the arts of former ancestors. Some questions nevertheless remain. Would
they retain the art of making stone tools? It is supposed they lost the
art of making a fire. Now in a world very humid, it is almost impossible
to discover a way to reinvent the making of fire. In a very humid forest
it would be almost impossible to find suitable flint stones. They must
learn to climb tall trees to get some fruits, or wait till the fruits fall
on the ground.

Evolution can walk in unexpected directions.
Eri

[eridanus]

degenerated apes. We had lost most of the virtues of being apes.

This guys are like religious people, that think evolution has a privileged
direction for the better. But the better is a relative term.
eri

[jillery]

Humans have always been primates.

>A new evolution backwards. Dry, colder climate,
>destroyed most of the primeval forest some 8 million years ago. They
>become hominids and eventually humans. But in my hypothesis, a handful
>of surviving humans had evolved so sturdy that barely have intelligence.
>It is then, that they can evolve back to become primates. I do not see
>any problem to imagine this.
>Evolution has not any privileged direction. Can go forward or backwards.
>eri

Evolution is necessarily contingent on the existing genetic makeup of
the population. Given that, even if the physical environment reverts
to the exact same conditions, which is also highly unlikely, a
population from tens of millions of years ago is necessarily going to
evolve a different species than a modern population.

Instead, what could happen is parallel evolution, where similar
environments evolve different species with similar morphological
features. This has happened for example with mammalian porpoises and
reptilian ichthyosaurs, and different species of saber-toothed cats:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saber-toothed_cat>

The important point here is that, no matter how similar they look on
the outside, they remain distinct and different species on the inside.
To say that parallel evolution is evolution run backwards is simply
wrongheaded. Instead, parallel evolution is evolution run forward
from different starting points toward similar ends.

[jillery]

Shit-Out-of-Luck.

>not only small game, even big game cannot live under a thick
>forest.
>eri

Umm...

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_forest_elephant>

<http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/forest-elephant>

"Forest elephants are an elusive subspecies of African elephants and
inhabit the densely wooded rainforests of west and central Africa.
Their preference for dense forest habitat prohibits traditional
counting methods such as visual identification"


Regarding forest ecosystems in general:

<http://oureverydaylife.com/describe-forest-ecosystem-29180.html>

"Healthy forests have a lot going on in them, and many different
species of both animals and plants that call them home."

[Glenn]

"eridanus" <leopoldo...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:4b8d20ee-9d2b-4d82...@googlegroups.com...

Is "virtue" a relative term?

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 15:33:26 -0400 (EDT), the following

OK. As I said, that was a bit too strong on my part.

>In any event, humans reverting to chimps is pretty much a no-go.

Agreed.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, August 19, 2016 at 4:31:40 PM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:
> An interesting (at least to me) case of reverse evolution was recently
> described in BMC Biology (full text free)
> http://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-016-0284-z
>
> Parasitism is ordinarily thought to be an irreversible life style
> because parasites ordinarily lose functions needed to live
> independently. The paper describes a case where a free-living
> organism (diplomonad, a flagellated protist group including Giardia)
> is deeply nested evolutionarily among parasites and hence almost
> certainly redeveloped the free-living life style from a parasitic
> ancestor.

I don't see the article claiming *deep* nesting. Are you deducing
this from nesting within the genus *Spironucleus*?

The most striking fact about *Giardia* IMO is its lack of mitochondria,
which is sometimes interpreted to be a sign that it is an obligate parasite.
I have not been able to find out whether *Trepomonas* has mitochondria
or not; the word search "mitoch" only turns up one word in the title
of Reference 25.

One Trepomonas species seems to be a facultative parasite:

free-living but T. agilis also occurs in intestine of amphibia,
a marine fish and tortoises.
http://eol.org/pages/92843/overview

> Not only is this reversal of life-style itself interesting
> but so is the means: The species studied, a member of Trepomonas,
> seems to have acquired most of its metabolic capabilities by gene
> transfer from bacterial genes.
>
> So this is a violoation of "Dollo's law of irreversibility" in its
> original form: "An organism is unable to return, even partially, to a
> previous stage already realized in the ranks of its ancestors."
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollo%27s_law_of_irreversibility
> However it does not violate a looser interpretation of the law which
> requires the reversal to return to the same earlier stage in the same
> form. This is a return to the life style but mediated by a different
> set of enzymes to do the work.

There was a minority opinion that *Giardia* has never evolved past the
primitive eukaryote stage before endosymbiotic bacteria came along and
were converted into mitochondria. However this seems to have been
discredited due to the discovery of what look to be vestigial remnants
of mitochondria.

> Still, parasitism has ordinarily been
> considered irreversible. Now it would have to be restated "parasitism
> is pretty much irreversible."

Or perhaps "obligate parasitism is irreversible" ... until some
species proves that wrong too.

[The word "obligate" only appears in titles of references, not the text.]

> Biology wins again: "no matter what you say about biology, some weird
> species somewhere will prove you wrong."

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 13:22:00 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:

Yes, we are. What has that to do with his comment? Or do you
imagine that "ape" and "chimp" are synonymous? Hint: They're
not, even though chimps are also apes.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 15:27:46 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:

>Explain that.

You, of all people, do not get to require that.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 02:10:11 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by eridanus
<leopoldo...@gmail.com>:

Shit out of luck. English is full of this sort of acronym.

>not only small game, even big game cannot live under a thick
>forest.

Some small animals *can* live in a temperate climax forest
(and do); large animals have a much more difficult time
there, mainly due to the lack of available ground-level
browse.
--

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 02:22:04 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by eridanus
<leopoldo...@gmail.com>:

Yes, which is why I specified *temperate* climax forests,
although even tropical rainforest has similar problems away
from waterways; almost all available nutrients are tied up
in the trees, and the shade caused by those trees doesn't
allow much ground cover.

> It can be different. If humans were almost
>extinct after some glacial age, could exist only near the equator.

Nope; the Inuit have lived in the Arctic for at least
thousands of years.

>Surviving
>in some traditional hunter gatherer way. But if rains and heat become
>a determinant, the had to come back to the forest. They had lost all
>of the arts of former ancestors. Some questions nevertheless remain. Would
>they retain the art of making stone tools? It is supposed they lost the
>art of making a fire. Now in a world very humid, it is almost impossible
>to discover a way to reinvent the making of fire. In a very humid forest
>it would be almost impossible to find suitable flint stones. They must
>learn to climb tall trees to get some fruits, or wait till the fruits fall
>on the ground.
>
>Evolution can walk in unexpected directions.
>Eri
>
>
>> Bob C.
>>
>> "The most exciting phrase to hear in science,
>> the one that heralds new discoveries, is not
>> 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'"
>>
>> - Isaac Asimov
>

--

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 02:24:03 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by eridanus
<leopoldo...@gmail.com>:

We've also lost most of the virtues of being fish, while
being better adapted to our current environment than either
bonobos or trout would be. That's how evolution works.

>This guys are like religious people, that think evolution has a privileged
>direction for the better.

What "guys" are those? Certainly neither myself nor Mr.
Norman.

> But the better is a relative term.

When discussing evolution, "better" means "more closely
adapted to the current environment". In that sense, "better"
is inevitable, barring extinction.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 07:56:10 -0700, the following appeared
in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:

And how 'bout them Mets?

[eridanus]

of course. It has not proper words that I know of, but it can exist more
more virtue, less virtue, stupid virtue, intelligent virtue, etc.
The problem is that the grammatical use make "virtue" a name and not an
adjective. But intelligence is a noun, but is as well relative. For you
can have more or less intelligence, and even almost not signs of it.
If the intelligence is relative, the virtue is also relative. Even the
sainthood is relative, or the bravery of a general called Douglas MacArthur
with a lot of medals. A general, but rather a relative general if one is
going to believe some stories about him.
eri

[eridanus]

A thousand years? omg. I thought you were saying a million years.
eri

[eridanus]

I do not understand Mets, then I cannot reply.
eri

[eridanus]

El lunes, 22 de agosto de 2016, 19:51:31 (UTC+1), Bob Casanova escribió:

you are not thinking a current environment "is forever". A "current
environment" can change drastically and none of us would be well adapted
to it. Ask to the dinosaurs about the meaning of current environment and
perfectly adapted.
eri

[Peter Nyikos]

On Sunday, August 21, 2016 at 5:06:34 PM UTC-4, rsNorman wrote:
> "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid> Wrote in message:
> >
> > "rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:npcvo3$ljp$1...@dont-email.me...
> >> Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> Wrote in message:
> >>> On Sat, 20 Aug 2016 15:36:56 -0400 (EDT), the following
> >>> appeared in talk.origins, posted by rsNorman
> >>> <r_s_n...@comcast.net>:
> >>>
> >>>>Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> Wrote in message:
> >>>>> On Fri, 19 Aug 2016 20:07:12 -0400 (EDT), the following
> >>>>> appeared in talk.origins, posted by rsNorman
> >>>>> <r_s_n...@comcast.net>:
> >>>>>
> >>>>>>eridanus <leopoldo...@gmail.com> Wrote in message:

Had I written it, it would have been a dig on John Harshman's aversion
to anything hinting at paraphyletic taxa. He insists that
"we are apes" is better than "we are descended from apes".

Too bad for him that he lacks the credentials of human anthropologist
John Hawks, who for purposes of communicating with the general
public, thinks "we are descended from apes" is better.

By the way, have you encountered Harshman anywhere in talk.origins
this month? I'm hoping you and he will return to sci.bio.paleontology
before long. I plan to post about the paleontology of flamingos
tonight, on s.b.p. and hope he can add something to it.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --
U. of South Carolina

[John Harshman]

Ah, a gratuitous attack on me in a post directed at a third party. Cool.

> Too bad for him that he lacks the credentials of human anthropologist
> John Hawks, who for purposes of communicating with the general
> public, thinks "we are descended from apes" is better.

Is there any other kind of anthropologist? And I deny that I lack the
relevant credentials. At any rate, credentials are not arguments. Lucky
for you, since you lack any credentials relevant to TO. If you want to
argue about whether humans are apes, take your best shot.

> By the way, have you encountered Harshman anywhere in talk.origins
> this month? I'm hoping you and he will return to sci.bio.paleontology
> before long. I plan to post about the paleontology of flamingos
> tonight, on s.b.p. and hope he can add something to it.

I'm not gone. I just rarely find anything lately worth responding to.
The creationists are getting worse and worse.

[RSNorman]

You are simply wrong on whether or not we "are" apes. We are. We are
also descended from a particular kind of ape.

I prefer not to deal in personal issues. I recommend you do the same.

John has now piped in expressing an opinion I have also come to in
recent weeks: there is rarely anything worth responding to here. Some
issues actually relate to real science but there are others doing a
fine job of trying (quite in vain, sadly) of explaining the science. I
see no need of repeating the obvious.

[RSNorman]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:31:58 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Friday, August 19, 2016 at 4:31:40 PM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:
>> An interesting (at least to me) case of reverse evolution was recently
>> described in BMC Biology (full text free)
>> http://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-016-0284-z
>>
>> Parasitism is ordinarily thought to be an irreversible life style
>> because parasites ordinarily lose functions needed to live
>> independently. The paper describes a case where a free-living
>> organism (diplomonad, a flagellated protist group including Giardia)
>> is deeply nested evolutionarily among parasites and hence almost
>> certainly redeveloped the free-living life style from a parasitic
>> ancestor.
>
>I don't see the article claiming *deep* nesting. Are you deducing
>this from nesting within the genus *Spironucleus*?

The paper does not say "deep". I looked at Figure 1 and I though that
the nesting of free-living forms inside parasitic ones to merit that
term.

>The most striking fact about *Giardia* IMO is its lack of mitochondria,
>which is sometimes interpreted to be a sign that it is an obligate parasite.
>I have not been able to find out whether *Trepomonas* has mitochondria
>or not; the word search "mitoch" only turns up one word in the title
>of Reference 25.

WIkipedia says "Most diplomonads are double cells: they have two
nuclei, each with four associated flagella, arranged symmetrically
about the body's main axis. Like the retortamonads, they lack both
mitochondria and a Golgi apparatus. However, they are now known to
possess modified mitochondria, in the case of G. lamblia, called
mitosomes. These are not used in ATP synthesis the way mitochondria
are, but are involved in the maturation of iron-sulfur proteins"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomonad

It also says about the larger group of metamonads: "These flagellates
are unusual in lacking mitochondria. Originally they were considered
among the most primitive eukaryotes, diverging from the others before
mitochondria appeared. However, they are now known to have lost
mitochondria secondarily, and retain both organelles and nuclear genes
derived from them. Mitochondrial relics include hydrogenosomes, which
produce hydrogen, and small structures called mitosomes."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metamonad

>One Trepomonas species seems to be a facultative parasite:
>
> free-living but T. agilis also occurs in intestine of amphibia,
> a marine fish and tortoises.
>http://eol.org/pages/92843/overview
>
>
>> Not only is this reversal of life-style itself interesting
>> but so is the means: The species studied, a member of Trepomonas,
>> seems to have acquired most of its metabolic capabilities by gene
>> transfer from bacterial genes.
>>
>> So this is a violoation of "Dollo's law of irreversibility" in its
>> original form: "An organism is unable to return, even partially, to a
>> previous stage already realized in the ranks of its ancestors."
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollo%27s_law_of_irreversibility
>> However it does not violate a looser interpretation of the law which
>> requires the reversal to return to the same earlier stage in the same
>> form. This is a return to the life style but mediated by a different
>> set of enzymes to do the work.
>
>There was a minority opinion that *Giardia* has never evolved past the
>primitive eukaryote stage before endosymbiotic bacteria came along and
>were converted into mitochondria. However this seems to have been
>discredited due to the discovery of what look to be vestigial remnants
>of mitochondria.

Yes, I responded earlier before getting down this far.

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:ahhmrbpu0hgaq5aqu...@4ax.com...

Do you think "something like chimps" and "chimps" are synonymous?

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:3fimrbttdsqb14m8h...@4ax.com...

I'll bite.

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:okhmrbh2qg0l1m1nd...@4ax.com...

No one gets to require anything here, mindless.

[Jonathan]

Parasites in prose and poetry...





From The Nature Is Beautiful Department


"The common barnacle (Sacculina) begins its parasitic life
as a free-swimming larva. The female barnacle (as insidious
as any woman!) settles on a crab, crawls to a leg joint
and pokes a small entry hole.

She then squeezes her soft parts inside (leaving her shell behind)
and wends her single-minded way to the abdomen where she dines
on the available nutrients. As she grows, she forms a protrusion
in the crab's shell and then sends out extensions - or "roots" -
of her own body throughout the crab, even to the very tips
of its eye stalks. As a result the crab soon no longer sheds
its shell, grows, or produces eggs or sperm. In essence, the
crab becomes a zombie vehicle which lives only to serve its
parasitic guest.


As if that weren't disturbing enough, the female furthermore
makes a pinhole in the host's abdomen to attract the tiny
male Sacculina, who squeezes himself into the crab in the
same fashion as the female had earlier. They then fertilize
each other for the remainder of their lives, and manipulate
the crab's hormonal system so that the crab periodically
scales a high rock, pushes out the parasites'
young'uns and even waves its claws in the water to
spread them on their merry way - just as it would do
for its own offspring."


~By Dale Houseman







There's a squeak of pure delight from a matey little
mite,
As it tortuously tunnels in the skin.
Singing furrow, Folly furrow, come and join me
in my burrow,
And we'll view the epidermis from within.


~ Guy's Hospital







Marke but this flea, and marke in this,
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea, our two bloods mingled bee;
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sinne, nor shame, nor losse of maidenhead,
Yet this enjoyes before it wooe,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two,
And this, alas, is more than wee would doe.'

~ John Donne






This day relenting God
Hath placed within my hand
A wondrous thing; and God
Be praised. At His command,
Seeking His secret deeds
With tears and toiling breath,
I find thy cunning seeds,
O million-murdering Death.
I know this little thing
A myriad men will save.
O Death, where is thy sting?
Thy victory, O Grave?


~ Sir Ronald Ross

awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1902
for proving the role of Anopheles mosquitoes
in the transmission of malaria parasites
in humans.
https://athnablog.wordpress.com/2016/06/17/malaria-poetry-and-the-power-of-the-written-word/






So Nat'ralists observe, a flea
Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.

~Dean Swift






The butterfly has wings of gold,
The firefly wings of flame;
The bed bug has no wings at all,
But he gets there just the same."







While wormwood hath seed, get a handful or twaine,
To save against March, to make flea to refraine.
Where chamber is sweeped, and wormwood is strown,
No flea for his life dare abide to be known.9
Fleas are also a rich source of proverbs, of whi


~Thomas Tusser, the Elizabethan agriculturalist





Great fleas have little fleas upon their backs to bite 'em,
And little fleas have lesser fleas, and so ad infinitum.
And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater
fleas to go on;
While these in turn have greater still, and greater still,
and so on.'


~Victorian mathematician Augustus de Morgan


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1676245/pdf/bmj00158-0057.pdf





s

[jillery]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 17:34:00 -0400, RSNorman <r_s_n...@comcast.net>
wrote:


[...]

>John has now piped in expressing an opinion I have also come to in
>recent weeks: there is rarely anything worth responding to here. Some
>issues actually relate to real science but there are others doing a
>fine job of trying (quite in vain, sadly) of explaining the science. I
>see no need of repeating the obvious.

One can only wonder what you thought worth responding to in Kalkidas'
troll just a couple of weeks back.

[rsNorman]

jillery <69jp...@gmail.com> Wrote in message:

I did not respond to Kalkidas, you may be interested to hear. Nor
did I think he trolled.

Aside from that, there is much to wonder about in our universe.
You are free to choose that topic.


--


----Android NewsGroup Reader----
http://usenet.sinaapp.com/

[jillery]

Of course, I didn't say you responded to Kalkidas, but instead to his
troll. And it doesn't matter what you choose to call Kalkidas' troll,
it doesn't change its attributes. And that we are all free to choose
the topics to wonder about is a truism not relevant to anything either
you or I posted here.

OTOH you're the one who claimed a lack of worthy topics, not me. So
unlike your noise, my comment is relevant to your post, in noting one
recent topic which you thought worthy of replying to many times.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 5:46:30 PM UTC-4, rsNorman wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:31:58 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >On Friday, August 19, 2016 at 4:31:40 PM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:
> >> An interesting (at least to me) case of reverse evolution was recently
> >> described in BMC Biology (full text free)
> >> http://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-016-0284-z
> >>
> >> Parasitism is ordinarily thought to be an irreversible life style
> >> because parasites ordinarily lose functions needed to live
> >> independently. The paper describes a case where a free-living
> >> organism (diplomonad, a flagellated protist group including Giardia)
> >> is deeply nested evolutionarily among parasites and hence almost
> >> certainly redeveloped the free-living life style from a parasitic
> >> ancestor.
> >
> >I don't see the article claiming *deep* nesting. Are you deducing
> >this from nesting within the genus *Spironucleus*?
>
> The paper does not say "deep". I looked at Figure 1 and I though that
> the nesting of free-living forms inside parasitic ones to merit that
> term.

There is another free living form, Hexamita,in there, and the parasitic
"nest" seems to really include only two genera. Do you reckon that to be
enough?

> >The most striking fact about *Giardia* IMO is its lack of mitochondria,
> >which is sometimes interpreted to be a sign that it is an obligate parasite.
> >I have not been able to find out whether *Trepomonas* has mitochondria
> >or not; the word search "mitoch" only turns up one word in the title
> >of Reference 25.
>
> WIkipedia says "Most diplomonads are double cells: they have two
> nuclei, each with four associated flagella, arranged symmetrically
> about the body's main axis. Like the retortamonads, they lack both
> mitochondria and a Golgi apparatus. However, they are now known to
> possess modified mitochondria, in the case of G. lamblia, called
> mitosomes. These are not used in ATP synthesis the way mitochondria
> are, but are involved in the maturation of iron-sulfur proteins"
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diplomonad

Thanks for providing the facts about Giardia to which I alluded below.
Nice to know they extend to metamonads (including Trepomonas) as well.

<snip documentation for metamonads>

> >One Trepomonas species seems to be a facultative parasite:
> >
> > free-living but T. agilis also occurs in intestine of amphibia,
> > a marine fish and tortoises.
> >http://eol.org/pages/92843/overview
> >
> >
> >> Not only is this reversal of life-style itself interesting
> >> but so is the means: The species studied, a member of Trepomonas,
> >> seems to have acquired most of its metabolic capabilities by gene
> >> transfer from bacterial genes.
> >>
> >> So this is a violoation of "Dollo's law of irreversibility" in its
> >> original form: "An organism is unable to return, even partially, to a
> >> previous stage already realized in the ranks of its ancestors."
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollo%27s_law_of_irreversibility
> >> However it does not violate a looser interpretation of the law which
> >> requires the reversal to return to the same earlier stage in the same
> >> form. This is a return to the life style but mediated by a different
> >> set of enzymes to do the work.

On another thread, you made a surrealistic attempt to link me
with Haeckel when I suggested that the blastocyst in humans
is a return to an earlier stage "blastula" in one of the two senses above.
Can you even find a different set of enzymes that produce the
human "blastula *sensu* Wikipedia" than the ones that produce
the primitive blastula of non-amniotes?

> >There was a minority opinion that *Giardia* has never evolved past the
> >primitive eukaryote stage before endosymbiotic bacteria came along and
> >were converted into mitochondria. However this seems to have been
> >discredited due to the discovery of what look to be vestigial remnants
> >of mitochondria.
>
> Yes, I responded earlier before getting down this far.

Thanks again.

> >> Still, parasitism has ordinarily been
> >> considered irreversible. Now it would have to be restated "parasitism
> >> is pretty much irreversible."
> >
> >Or perhaps "obligate parasitism is irreversible" ... until some
> >species proves that wrong too.
> >
> >[The word "obligate" only appears in titles of references, not the text.]

Do you know whether *Spironucleus* is an obligate parasite?
If so, my "until..." may already be here.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 12:11:43 -0700 (PDT), the following

No, I said "at least thousands of years" because I'm not
sure if it was tens of thousands. But either one refutes
your assertion.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 12:18:33 -0700 (PDT), the following

Of course not; what ever gave you the idea I would think it
is? Evolution almost always has to hit a moving target.

> A "current
>environment" can change drastically and none of us would be well adapted
>to it. Ask to the dinosaurs about the meaning of current environment and
>perfectly adapted.

That comment is correct, and is irrelevant to what I posted.
And I never (and would never) say any species is "perfectly
adapted". Although tapeworms come close...

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 12:20:09 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by eridanus
<leopoldo...@gmail.com>:

Then ask Glenn; he asked the first irrelevant question. As
usual.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:57:34 -0700, the following appeared

>Do you think "something like chimps" and "chimps" are synonymous?

No. But why do you ask, TDF? No one mentioned "something
like chimps" ( although eri's original post did use "like
chimps") until now.

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:58:12 -0700, the following appeared

>No one gets to require anything here, mindless.

Agreed, so why did you attempt to do so?

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:58:56 -0700, the following appeared

>I'll bite.

Not me, you won't; I wouldn't let you get that close.

[Peter Nyikos]

<snip for focus>

> >>> In any event, humans reverting to chimps is pretty much a no-go.
> >
> >>I thought we *were* apes.
> >
> > Yes, we are. What has that to do with his comment? Or do you
> > imagine that "ape" and "chimp" are synonymous? Hint: They're
> > not, even though chimps are also apes.
> > --
> Do you think "something like chimps" and "chimps" are synonymous?

Bob probably forgot about the wording of eridanus (Leopoldo Perdomo),
but your point is well taken. I doubt that Bob wants to get
embroiled in another discussion about our ape ancestors after
his fiasco involving *Proconsul*, from which only "Big Daddy
Harshman" was able to extricate him, by acting as though Bob
were far more knowledgeable than he had shown any evidence of being.

[RSNorman]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 11:08:43 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos

<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 5:46:30 PM UTC-4, rsNorman wrote:
>> On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 11:31:58 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
>> <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>>
>> >On Friday, August 19, 2016 at 4:31:40 PM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:
>> >> An interesting (at least to me) case of reverse evolution was recently
>> >> described in BMC Biology (full text free)
>> >> http://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12915-016-0284-z
>> >>
>> >> Parasitism is ordinarily thought to be an irreversible life style
>> >> because parasites ordinarily lose functions needed to live
>> >> independently. The paper describes a case where a free-living
>> >> organism (diplomonad, a flagellated protist group including Giardia)
>> >> is deeply nested evolutionarily among parasites and hence almost
>> >> certainly redeveloped the free-living life style from a parasitic
>> >> ancestor.
>> >
>> >I don't see the article claiming *deep* nesting. Are you deducing
>> >this from nesting within the genus *Spironucleus*?
>>
>> The paper does not say "deep". I looked at Figure 1 and I though that
>> the nesting of free-living forms inside parasitic ones to merit that
>> term.
>
>There is another free living form, Hexamita,in there, and the parasitic
>"nest" seems to really include only two genera. Do you reckon that to be
>enough?

You are focussing on a single word. What difference does it make
whether the nesting is shallow or deep? Is "over the waist"
considered "deep"?

I have no idea. The Protista is a group I have tried desperately to
avoid during my career.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 2:36:27 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:
> On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:57:34 -0700, the following appeared
> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
>
> >
> >"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:ahhmrbpu0hgaq5aqu...@4ax.com...
> >> On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 13:22:00 -0700, the following appeared
> >> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>"rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:npcvo3$ljp$1...@dont-email.me...

> >>>> In any event, humans reverting to chimps is pretty much a no-go.
> >>
> >>>I thought we *were* apes.
> >>
> >> Yes, we are. What has that to do with his comment? Or do you
> >> imagine that "ape" and "chimp" are synonymous? Hint: They're
> >> not, even though chimps are also apes.
>
> >Do you think "something like chimps" and "chimps" are synonymous?
>
> No. But why do you ask, TDF? No one mentioned "something
> like chimps" ( although eri's original post did use "like
> chimps") until now.

So what? Either Norman was guilty of a *non sequitur*, or you
are being excessively nitpicky, and applying double standards.

Peter Nyikos

Trivia: your reply to Glenn came only three and a half minutes
before mine. I think you agree with me that it would
be inappropriate to say "great minds think alike" although
for almost opposite reasons than the ones for which
I think it is inappropriate.

[Peter Nyikos]

Come on, use your head! the deeper the nesting, the more unassailable
the conclusion that Trepomonas and Hexamita were descended from
parasites.

And this is one use of "descended from" that even your buddy
Harshman cannot object to. :-) :-)

> Is "over the waist"
> considered "deep"?

It depends on the context. But the biological context of my
comment is quite clear.

Peter Nyikos

[RSNorman]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 12:01:48 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos

The nesting is "deep enough" to convince me of the conclusion that the
ancestors of Trepomonas were parasitic.

[Glenn]

"Peter Nyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:288ab993-0994-4a18...@googlegroups.com...

They're all fun to watch. In the grand scheme of things, human apes reverting to something like chimps is pretty much a no-go. Got it. Eek-Eek.

[Peter Nyikos]

Whatever floats your boat.

Peter Nyikos

[Peter Nyikos]

On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 2:36:27 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:

> On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:58:12 -0700, the following appeared
> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
>
> >
> >"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:okhmrbh2qg0l1m1nd...@4ax.com...
> >> On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 15:27:46 -0700, the following appeared
> >> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
> >>
> >>>
> >>>"jillery" <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:3p5krbdfedsonmnp9...@4ax.com...
> >>>> On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 13:22:00 -0700, "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>

> >>>>>I thought we *were* apes.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> And how 'bout them Mets.
> >>
> >>>Explain that.
> >>
> >> You, of all people, do not get to require that.
>
> >No one gets to require anything here, mindless.
>
> Agreed, so why did you attempt to do so?
> --
>
> Bob C.

You are violating an unspoken internet assumption, which is that when someone
asks Person X to do something, [s]he is not assuming that Person X is
required to act that way.

If it weren't for this unspoken assumption, people would be caught
in sterile, thread-diluting back-and-forth, such as that which
you initiated.

If Glenn had said, "Explain that, please" would you have made a different
sarcastic comment, such as "We are not here to please you"?

Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

"Peter Nyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:d4e547d2-1d1c-4121...@googlegroups.com...

Probably, since Bob requires answers and does not post to please.

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 11:34:58 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net>:

No, Bob didn't; Bob even commented on it in Bob's response.
And despite Glenn's quotation marks, eri didn't use the word
"something".

HTH, and HAND, you arrogant jerk.

<snip poor attempt at condescension>

[Bob Casanova]

On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 11:52:28 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net>:

>On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 2:36:27 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:
>> On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:57:34 -0700, the following appeared
>> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
>>
>> >
>> >"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:ahhmrbpu0hgaq5aqu...@4ax.com...
>> >> On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 13:22:00 -0700, the following appeared
>> >> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>>"rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:npcvo3$ljp$1...@dont-email.me...
>
>> >>>> In any event, humans reverting to chimps is pretty much a no-go.
>> >>
>> >>>I thought we *were* apes.
>> >>
>> >> Yes, we are. What has that to do with his comment? Or do you
>> >> imagine that "ape" and "chimp" are synonymous? Hint: They're
>> >> not, even though chimps are also apes.
>>
>> >Do you think "something like chimps" and "chimps" are synonymous?
>>
>> No. But why do you ask, TDF? No one mentioned "something
>> like chimps" ( although eri's original post did use "like
>> chimps") until now.
>
>So what? Either Norman was guilty of a *non sequitur*, or you
>are being excessively nitpicky, and applying double standards.

Sorry you think a direct quote can include material not in
the original post. A bit revealing, though...

>Trivia: your reply to Glenn came only three and a half minutes
>before mine. I think you agree with me that it would
>be inappropriate to say "great minds think alike" although
>for almost opposite reasons than the ones for which
>I think it is inappropriate.

Almost certainly.

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:p8orrblp4h8lt1pl1...@4ax.com...

You referring to this?:

"In any event, humans reverting to chimps is pretty much a no-go."

"Agreed."

> And despite Glenn's quotation marks, eri didn't use the word
> "something".
>
> HTH, and HAND, you arrogant jerk.
>

And you didn't include "like" with "chimp" above, you arrogant jerk.

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:9forrbd7lehtv1kom...@4ax.com...

> On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 11:52:28 -0700 (PDT), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net>:
>
>>On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 2:36:27 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:
>>> On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:57:34 -0700, the following appeared
>>> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
>>>
>>> >
>>> >"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:ahhmrbpu0hgaq5aqu...@4ax.com...
>>> >> On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 13:22:00 -0700, the following appeared
>>> >> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
>>> >>
>>> >>>
>>> >>>"rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:npcvo3$ljp$1...@dont-email.me...
>>
>>> >>>> In any event, humans reverting to chimps is pretty much a no-go.
>>> >>
>>> >>>I thought we *were* apes.
>>> >>
>>> >> Yes, we are. What has that to do with his comment? Or do you
>>> >> imagine that "ape" and "chimp" are synonymous? Hint: They're
>>> >> not, even though chimps are also apes.
>>>
>>> >Do you think "something like chimps" and "chimps" are synonymous?
>>>
>>> No. But why do you ask, TDF? No one mentioned "something
>>> like chimps" ( although eri's original post did use "like
>>> chimps") until now.
>>
>>So what? Either Norman was guilty of a *non sequitur*, or you
>>are being excessively nitpicky, and applying double standards.
>
> Sorry you think a direct quote can include material not in
> the original post. A bit revealing, though...
>

Is that so.
You asked "Do you think "something like chimps" and "chimps" are synonymous" and you admit you were aware of Eri's characterization.

Do you think "something like chimps" and "like chimps" are synonymous?

Are "chimps" a direct quote?

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 24 Aug 2016 09:14:49 -0700, the following appeared

I require nothing. You provide nothing.

Perfect balance.

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 24 Aug 2016 08:38:49 -0700 (PDT), the following
appeared in talk.origins, posted by Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net>:

>On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 2:36:27 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:

>> On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:58:12 -0700, the following appeared
>> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:

>> >"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:okhmrbh2qg0l1m1nd...@4ax.com...

>> >> On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 15:27:46 -0700, the following appeared
>> >> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:

>> >>>"jillery" <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:3p5krbdfedsonmnp9...@4ax.com...

>> >>>> On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 13:22:00 -0700, "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>

>>>>>>>"rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:npcvo3$ljp$1...@dont-email.me...

>>>>>>>> In any event, humans reverting to chimps is pretty much a no-go.

>> >>>>>I thought we *were* apes.

>> >>>> And how 'bout them Mets.

>> >>>Explain that.

>> >> You, of all people, do not get to require that.

>> >No one gets to require anything here, mindless.

>> Agreed, so why did you attempt to do so?

>You are violating an unspoken internet assumption, which is that when someone
>asks Person X to do something, [s]he is not assuming that Person X is
>required to act that way.

Aha! Of course!

"Do this! Of course, you're not required to do so."

You forget that the unspoken corollary to that, at least
when the subject involves support for a question of science
or evidence, is "If you don't, I'll assume you have no
answer". But that isn't the reason for the initial response
to Glenn's inane question.

(BTW, I reinserted the comment by Mr. Norman, and its
attribution, so the inanity of Glenn's question would be a
bit more clear. HTH.)

You seem to miss the point that Glenn, who is notorious for
almost never explaining *anything* and for posting
frequently-irrelevant one-liners, demanded an explanation.
Try to keep up.

>If it weren't for this unspoken assumption, people would be caught
>in sterile, thread-diluting back-and-forth, such as that which
>you initiated.

I didn't initiate anything; in fact, my comment stated that
Glenn could not make such a demand.

>If Glenn had said, "Explain that, please" would you have made a different
>sarcastic comment, such as "We are not here to please you"?

Possibly. But more likely I would have ignored it, since it
wouldn't be as hypocritical or ironic as Glenn's demand; the
non-explainer demanding an explanation.

Of course, you have little room for complaint, since
multiple requests (not demands, at least at first) over a
period of months failed to elicit an explanation from you
regarding your assignment of values for the later terms in
the Drake Equation.

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:8oqrrbhob5h21vjcp...@4ax.com...

Required, of course.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, August 24, 2016 at 2:06:24 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Aug 2016 11:34:58 -0700 (PDT), the following
> appeared in talk.origins, posted by Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net>:
>
> >On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 6:01:30 PM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:
> >> "Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:ahhmrbpu0hgaq5aqu...@4ax.com...
> >> > On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 13:22:00 -0700, the following appeared
> >> > in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >>"rsNorman" <r_s_n...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:npcvo3$ljp$1...@dont-email.me...
> >> >>> Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> Wrote in message:
> >> >>>> On Sat, 20 Aug 2016 15:36:56 -0400 (EDT), the following
> >> >>>> appeared in talk.origins, posted by rsNorman
> >> >>>> <r_s_n...@comcast.net>:
> >> >>>>
> >> >>>>>Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off> Wrote in message:
> >> >>>>>> On Fri, 19 Aug 2016 20:07:12 -0400 (EDT), the following
> >> >>>>>> appeared in talk.origins, posted by rsNorman
> >> >>>>>> <r_s_n...@comcast.net>:
> >> >>>>>>
> >> >>>>>>>eridanus <leopoldo...@gmail.com> Wrote in message:

...which I hadn't seen at that point. So now I'm glad I made that "Trivia"
PS to my post about our posts having been sent only 3.5 minutes apart.

More trivia: they appeared in Google Groups less than a minute apart.
I saw the caption "(2 minutes ago)" for both, and similar things for
the next hour.

> And despite Glenn's quotation marks, eri didn't use the word
> "something".

And you're sure you know that Glenn meant for it
to be a direct quote of something eri said, eh?

Would you class that under clairvoyance, or telepathy? :-)

> HTH, and HAND, you arrogant jerk.
>
> <snip poor attempt at condescension>

The truth hurts so much, you have to snip and insult it. How typical of you.

By the way, IIRC I learned the expression "snip-n-snark" from you, referring
to the action of someone who also deserved it.

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

On Wed, 24 Aug 2016 08:38:49 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Tuesday, August 23, 2016 at 2:36:27 PM UTC-4, Bob Casanova wrote:
>> On Mon, 22 Aug 2016 14:58:12 -0700, the following appeared
>> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
>>
>> >
>> >"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:okhmrbh2qg0l1m1nd...@4ax.com...
>> >> On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 15:27:46 -0700, the following appeared
>> >> in talk.origins, posted by "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>:
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>>"jillery" <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:3p5krbdfedsonmnp9...@4ax.com...
>> >>>> On Sun, 21 Aug 2016 13:22:00 -0700, "Glenn" <g...@invalid.invalid>
>
>
>> >>>>>I thought we *were* apes.
>> >>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> And how 'bout them Mets.
>> >>
>> >>>Explain that.
>> >>
>> >> You, of all people, do not get to require that.
>>
>> >No one gets to require anything here, mindless.
>>
>> Agreed, so why did you attempt to do so?
>> --
>>
>> Bob C.
>
>You are violating an unspoken internet assumption, which is that when someone
>asks Person X to do something, [s]he is not assuming that Person X is
>required to act that way.
>
>If it weren't for this unspoken assumption, people would be caught
>in sterile, thread-diluting back-and-forth, such as that which
>you initiated.

The sterile, thread-diluting back-and-forth was initiated by Glenn,
with his inane comment still preserved above.

>If Glenn had said, "Explain that, please" would you have made a different
>sarcastic comment, such as "We are not here to please you"?

In the meantime, your anile ejaculations dilute the thread even more.

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 24 Aug 2016 11:33:17 -0700, the following appeared

Actually, idiot, that was you; it's right there above. I
asked if you thought "ape" and "chimp" are synonymous. Try
to keep up.

> and you admit you were aware of Eri's characterization.

Yes; so? And it's not "admit", which implies confession of
some sort of guilt.

>Do you think "something like chimps" and "like chimps" are synonymous?

I already said "no", so obviously not.

>Are "chimps" a direct quote?

No, TDF, chimps are apes. But all apes aren't chimps, and
we're back to your original error, in which you conflated
"chimps" and "apes" (which is also still right there,
above).

[Bob Casanova]

On Wed, 24 Aug 2016 15:05:31 -0700 (PDT), the following

No, I'd classify it under common grammatical usage. YMMV.

>> HTH, and HAND, you arrogant jerk.
>>
>> <snip poor attempt at condescension>
>
>The truth hurts so much, you have to snip and insult it. How typical of you.

....says the condescending jerk.

>By the way, IIRC I learned the expression "snip-n-snark" from you, referring
>to the action of someone who also deserved it.

Actually, you did not; you learned it from another poster
who is also disgusted with your arrogant condescension. HTH,
and try to keep up.

[Peter Nyikos]

It does. Once Harshman informed me that "scare quotes" is generally
a misnomer, I've grown quite good at using the term myself.
Unlike you, I'm not sure whether Glenn intended for them
to be scare quotes or indicating a direct quote.

> >> HTH, and HAND, you arrogant jerk.
> >>
> >> <snip poor attempt at condescension>
> >
> >The truth hurts so much, you have to snip and insult it. How typical of you.
>
> ....says the condescending jerk.

You mean "the moralizing jerk", you amoral jerk.

You've practically cornered the talk.origins market on condescension.
That's why it was so entertaining when Glenn and I deflated you in
the process of taking apart your amateurish claims about *Proconsul*
back in December. You had made one condescending remark after
another to Glenn.

And you even made some to me, as though you were lecturing to
a creationist.

And by the way, I didn't mention the MAIN way Harshman
"kissed it where it hurt": he hurled unsupportable insults at me
for the way I handled cladistics, falsely accusing me of ignorance,
in order to deflect attention from YOUR ignorance.

> >By the way, IIRC I learned the expression "snip-n-snark" from you, referring
> >to the action of someone who also deserved it.
>
> Actually, you did not; you learned it from another poster
> who is also disgusted with your arrogant condescension.

Oh? Who would that have been? [S]he wasn't talking about me, but
about a short-term interloper in talk.origins who indulged
in an orgy of snip-n-snark against all kinds of people. IIRC
you and [s]he were teaming up against this interloper, but
I couldn't remember who your teammate was.

Good job, by the way.

I'd dearly love to know who would think of ME as being arrogant
and condescending, but would NOT think of YOU that way.

> HTH,
> and try to keep up.

This happened over a year ago, so "keep up" is inappropriate.

Peter Nyikos

[Glenn]

"Peter Nyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:21aa9083-1aad-4c48...@googlegroups.com...

Would anyone think that "something" changed anything?

[Peter Nyikos]

What question? The only thing that reads like a question
up there is jillery's, despite the use of a period rather
than a question mark.

And what's inane about asking for an explanation of jillery's
cryptic, completely off-topic and off-t.o.-charter
question about the Mets? Eridanus couldn't fathom it either.

Can you explain WHY jillery made that off-the-wall comment? or are you
too buddy-buddy with jillery to reveal whether you figured it out or not?

> (BTW, I reinserted the comment by Mr. Norman, and its
> attribution, so the inanity of Glenn's question would be a
> bit more clear. HTH.)

Again, what question?

Of course, you didn't reinsert the comment by Eridanus about
us devolving to "like chimps", which would have made the irrelevance
of Richard Norman's comment clear. After all, you are on too good terms
with Norman to nitpick on the difference between "chimps" and
"like chimps," preferring to harp on the much more minor
difference between "something like chimps" and "like chimps."

And that's because of your animosity towards Glenn, only
partly explained by the following:

> You seem to miss the point that Glenn, who is notorious for
> almost never explaining *anything* and for posting
> frequently-irrelevant one-liners, demanded an explanation.

Glenn is irritating that way, sure. But I'll take Glenn's irritating
habits over your hypocritical, condescending, and sporadically
dishonest and insincere behavior any day.

> Try to keep up.

Mildly condescending, and (more importantly) begging the question.

> >If it weren't for this unspoken assumption, people would be caught
> >in sterile, thread-diluting back-and-forth, such as that which
> >you initiated.
>
> I didn't initiate anything; in fact, my comment stated that
> Glenn could not make such a demand.

Calling it a "demand" is spin-doctoring to support your inane/disingenuous
"I didn't initiate anything."

> >If Glenn had said, "Explain that, please" would you have made a different
> >sarcastic comment, such as "We are not here to please you"?
>
> Possibly. But more likely I would have ignored it, since it
> wouldn't be as hypocritical or ironic as Glenn's demand; the
> non-explainer demanding an explanation.

Glenn does explain things from time to time, like [s]he did while
you made a monkey out of yourself with your arrogant comments
in that *Proconsul* debate. I believe you dislike Glenn more
for when he nails you like he did then, than for these irritating
habits of his/hers.

> Of course, you have little room for complaint, since
> multiple requests (not demands, at least at first) over a
> period of months failed to elicit an explanation from you
> regarding your assignment of values for the later terms in
> the Drake Equation.

You poisoned the wells by using the perjorative term WAG
(wild-assed guess) and I feared it had prejudiced people against
any reasoning I could give for my guesses.

After all this was history, you wrote something that revealed that
you, personally, did not think of "wild-assed" as being pejorative,
but I doubt that most others would have seen it that way.

Peter Nyikos

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 06:07:56 -0700 (PDT), the following

Scare quotes are a bit different; they're generally used to
indicate disagreement with a term used, such as "Nyikos
humility". HTH.

>> >> HTH, and HAND, you arrogant jerk.
>> >>
>> >> <snip poor attempt at condescension>
>> >
>> >The truth hurts so much, you have to snip and insult it. How typical of you.
>>
>> ....says the condescending jerk.
>
>You mean "the moralizing jerk", you amoral jerk.

No, I meant exactly what I wrote. Your morality is a
separate issue, and I have no personal experience, here or
elsewhere, on which to base a conclusion.

>You've practically cornered the talk.origins market on condescension.
>That's why it was so entertaining when Glenn and I deflated you in
>the process of taking apart your amateurish claims about *Proconsul*
>back in December. You had made one condescending remark after
>another to Glenn.
>
>And you even made some to me, as though you were lecturing to
>a creationist.
>
>And by the way, I didn't mention the MAIN way Harshman
>"kissed it where it hurt": he hurled unsupportable insults at me
>for the way I handled cladistics, falsely accusing me of ignorance,
>in order to deflect attention from YOUR ignorance.

"Oh look! Everyone is out of step except Petey!"

>> >By the way, IIRC I learned the expression "snip-n-snark" from you, referring
>> >to the action of someone who also deserved it.
>>
>> Actually, you did not; you learned it from another poster
>> who is also disgusted with your arrogant condescension.
>
>Oh? Who would that have been? [S]he wasn't talking about me, but
>about a short-term interloper in talk.origins who indulged
>in an orgy of snip-n-snark against all kinds of people. IIRC
>you and [s]he were teaming up against this interloper, but
>I couldn't remember who your teammate was.

Nice attempt at deflection, but you simply confirmed what I
wrote, that the term "snip-n-snark" did not originate with
me, despite your false assertion above.

>Good job, by the way.

Thanks.

>I'd dearly love to know who would think of ME as being arrogant
>and condescending, but would NOT think of YOU that way.

Why not take a vote?

>> HTH,
>> and try to keep up.

>This happened over a year ago, so "keep up" is inappropriate.

You brought it up, so "keep up" is entirely appropriate.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 10:31:09 -0700 (PDT), the following

Eri has the excuse that English is a second language. But
I'd be happy to explain. When an irrelevant remark such as
Glenn's "I thought we *were* apes" (irrelevant because the
subject, and the statement to which Glenn directly
responded, was not about whether chimps are apes, but about
the unlikelihood of humans "reverting" to chimps) is made,
an irrelevant response is fairly common, and "And how 'bout
them Mets" is egregiously irrelevant in order to emphasize
the irrelevance of the original remark. HTH.

>Can you explain WHY jillery made that off-the-wall comment? or are you
>too buddy-buddy with jillery to reveal whether you figured it out or not?

I didn't have to "figure it out"; if I'm not mistaken I was
the first to use it as an irrelevant response to an
irrelevant remark (or claim).

>> (BTW, I reinserted the comment by Mr. Norman, and its
>> attribution, so the inanity of Glenn's question would be a
>> bit more clear. HTH.)
>
>Again, what question?

You don't consider "I thought we *were* apes" to be an
implicit question? OK.

>Of course, you didn't reinsert the comment by Eridanus about
>us devolving to "like chimps", which would have made the irrelevance
>of Richard Norman's comment clear. After all, you are on too good terms
>with Norman to nitpick on the difference between "chimps" and
>"like chimps," preferring to harp on the much more minor
>difference between "something like chimps" and "like chimps."
>
>And that's because of your animosity towards Glenn, only
>partly explained by the following:
>
>> You seem to miss the point that Glenn, who is notorious for
>> almost never explaining *anything* and for posting
>> frequently-irrelevant one-liners, demanded an explanation.
>
>Glenn is irritating that way, sure. But I'll take Glenn's irritating
>habits over your hypocritical, condescending, and sporadically
>dishonest and insincere behavior any day.

....says the pot.

>> Try to keep up.
>
>Mildly condescending, and (more importantly) begging the question.
>
>> >If it weren't for this unspoken assumption, people would be caught
>> >in sterile, thread-diluting back-and-forth, such as that which
>> >you initiated.
>>
>> I didn't initiate anything; in fact, my comment stated that
>> Glenn could not make such a demand.
>
>Calling it a "demand" is spin-doctoring to support your inane/disingenuous
>"I didn't initiate anything."

OK, pick a term, so long as the term doesn't equate to
"request".

>> >If Glenn had said, "Explain that, please" would you have made a different
>> >sarcastic comment, such as "We are not here to please you"?
>>
>> Possibly. But more likely I would have ignored it, since it
>> wouldn't be as hypocritical or ironic as Glenn's demand; the
>> non-explainer demanding an explanation.
>
>Glenn does explain things from time to time, like [s]he did while
>you made a monkey out of yourself with your arrogant comments
>in that *Proconsul* debate. I believe you dislike Glenn more
>for when he nails you like he did then, than for these irritating
>habits of his/hers.

You really need to let that Proconsul issue go; it's eating
you up inside.

>> Of course, you have little room for complaint, since
>> multiple requests (not demands, at least at first) over a
>> period of months failed to elicit an explanation from you
>> regarding your assignment of values for the later terms in
>> the Drake Equation.
>
>You poisoned the wells by using the perjorative term WAG
>(wild-assed guess) and I feared it had prejudiced people against
>any reasoning I could give for my guesses.

IOW, you seized on a reason to run away. OK, but I already
knew that.

>After all this was history, you wrote something that revealed that
>you, personally, did not think of "wild-assed" as being pejorative,
>but I doubt that most others would have seen it that way.

People make SWAGs and WAGs all the time. The understood
difference between a SWAG and a WAG is that a SWAG has some
evidence, even if inconclusive, in support. You presented no
such evidence, but seemingly assigned values ex nihilo.

But I'll ask nicely, since you like to drag out history:

Where did you get the values you assigned for the terms in
the Drake Equation?

[jillery]

One can only wonder how you conveniently missed Glenn's initiating
remark "I thought we were apes", several times, even after I pointed
it out, remarkably still preserved in the quoted text above, despite
your compulsive and self-serving snippage.

>And what's inane about asking for an explanation of jillery's
>cryptic, completely off-topic and off-t.o.-charter
>question about the Mets? Eridanus couldn't fathom it either.

So English isn't your native language either. That explains a lot
about your inability to understand written English.

>Can you explain WHY jillery made that off-the-wall comment? or are you
>too buddy-buddy with jillery to reveal whether you figured it out or not?

Of course, I already explained it, but you were too busy ejaculating
your irrelevant noise to notice.

>> (BTW, I reinserted the comment by Mr. Norman, and its
>> attribution, so the inanity of Glenn's question would be a
>> bit more clear. HTH.)
>
>Again, what question?

Again, read for comprehension.

>Of course, you didn't reinsert the comment by Eridanus about
>us devolving to "like chimps", which would have made the irrelevance
>of Richard Norman's comment clear. After all, you are on too good terms
>with Norman to nitpick on the difference between "chimps" and
>"like chimps," preferring to harp on the much more minor
>difference between "something like chimps" and "like chimps."
>
>And that's because of your animosity towards Glenn, only
>partly explained by the following:
>
>> You seem to miss the point that Glenn, who is notorious for
>> almost never explaining *anything* and for posting
>> frequently-irrelevant one-liners, demanded an explanation.
>
>Glenn is irritating that way, sure. But I'll take Glenn's irritating
>habits over your hypocritical, condescending, and sporadically
>dishonest and insincere behavior any day.

Apparently hypocritical, condescending, dishonest and insincere
behavior is ok only when you do it.

>> Try to keep up.
>
>Mildly condescending, and (more importantly) begging the question.

Apparently you don't even know what the question is, so begging the
question would be progress for you.

>> >If it weren't for this unspoken assumption, people would be caught
>> >in sterile, thread-diluting back-and-forth, such as that which
>> >you initiated.
>>
>> I didn't initiate anything; in fact, my comment stated that
>> Glenn could not make such a demand.
>
>Calling it a "demand" is spin-doctoring to support your inane/disingenuous
>"I didn't initiate anything."

Apparently inane/disingenuous comments are ok only when you post them.

>> >If Glenn had said, "Explain that, please" would you have made a different
>> >sarcastic comment, such as "We are not here to please you"?
>>
>> Possibly. But more likely I would have ignored it, since it
>> wouldn't be as hypocritical or ironic as Glenn's demand; the
>> non-explainer demanding an explanation.
>
>Glenn does explain things from time to time, like [s]he did while
>you made a monkey out of yourself with your arrogant comments
>in that *Proconsul* debate. I believe you dislike Glenn more
>for when he nails you like he did then, than for these irritating
>habits of his/hers.

Of course, the above has nothing whatever to do with this topic, this
thread, or anything anybody posted to it. But ejaculating irrelevant
noise is what you do. You can't help yourself.

>> Of course, you have little room for complaint, since
>> multiple requests (not demands, at least at first) over a
>> period of months failed to elicit an explanation from you
>> regarding your assignment of values for the later terms in
>> the Drake Equation.
>
>You poisoned the wells by using the perjorative term WAG
>(wild-assed guess) and I feared it had prejudiced people against
>any reasoning I could give for my guesses.
>
>After all this was history, you wrote something that revealed that
>you, personally, did not think of "wild-assed" as being pejorative,
>but I doubt that most others would have seen it that way.

[jillery]

On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 11:55:00 -0700, Bob Casanova <nos...@buzz.off>
wrote:

Of course, nobody had to figure anything out. This is just more of
rockhead's anile ejaculations. It's what happens when strange
bedfellows get together.

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:tq21sb54chj54dcg6...@4ax.com...

Isn't that what he just did?

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:4931sbt80ddnsbk95...@4ax.com...

Now that takes the cake. Today.

[Glenn]

"jillery" <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:td91sbhng3iuc12r3...@4ax.com...

That you, Hillary?

[Glenn]

"jillery" <69jp...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:8t91sbhish6v0e3ul...@4ax.com...

After repeating it, that certainly isn't irrelevant.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:55:54 -0700, the following appeared

For what, knowledge of the structure of an implicit
question? Again, apparently English isn't your first
language.

[Bob Casanova]

On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 14:53:43 -0700, the following appeared

No. Apparently English is not your first language, either.

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:o2k3sb93g1q0qoa0m...@4ax.com...

In that case, voting is required and I demand one.

[Glenn]

"Bob Casanova" <nos...@buzz.off> wrote in message news:f5k3sb9o89pab45os...@4ax.com...

No it isn't. Please provide proper reference to the statement being an implicit question as a result of having the structure of an implicit question.

[Bob Casanova]

On Sat, 27 Aug 2016 12:17:35 -0700, the following appeared

Then, assuming that is true, consider your knowledge of
English enhanced. Or even if it's not true.

> Please provide proper reference to the statement being an implicit question as a result of having the structure of an implicit question.

No reference required; any statement beginning "(But) I
thought..." implicitly asks for a response. In this case, a
non-sarcastic response would have been something like, "Your
implied question is irrelevant, since no one mentioned
apes". I simply chose to use a response in character with
the ones you usually post, a sarcastically irrelevant
question to call attention to the irrelevance of yours.

But you probably know all this, so your tapdancing is just
your usual garbage.

[Peter Nyikos]

The term "scare quotes" is so broad that I doubt that "generally" is
warranted.

> >>> >> HTH, and HAND, you arrogant jerk.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> <snip poor attempt at condescension>
> >>> >
> >>> >The truth hurts so much, you have to snip and insult it. How typical of you.
> >>>
> >>> ....says the condescending jerk.
> >>
> >>You mean "the moralizing jerk", you amoral jerk.
> >
> > No, I meant exactly what I wrote.

Casanova has very little understanding of moralizing, otherwise
he would realize that, by snipping out what I wrote without
contesting its truth, he is leaving himself open to
moralizing such as I exhibited.

The statement that he snipped is an embarrassment to him and
to Harshman, and he doesn't even have the chutzpah to deny it.

His latest gambit is to make the ridiculous statement
that his hypocrisy and ignorance about *Proconsul*
[which you witnessed] is "eating [me] up inside". Someone working
the other side of the street might claim that I am having
*Schadenfreude* over it, but that is also incorrect, though
not so wildly incorrect as his claim.

> > Your morality is a
> > separate issue, and I have no personal experience, here or
> > elsewhere, on which to base a conclusion.

One only has to look up the word "moralizing" in a good dictionary
and review what has transpired between us on this thread. If the morality of
truth v. falsehood is supposed to be MY morality, and not Bob's,
he is only helping to confirm that he is, indeed, an amoral jerk.

> >>You've practically cornered the talk.origins market on condescension.
> >>That's why it was so entertaining when Glenn and I deflated you in
> >>the process of taking apart your amateurish claims about *Proconsul*
> >>back in December. You had made one condescending remark after
> >>another to Glenn.
> >>
> >>And you even made some to me, as though you were lecturing to
> >>a creationist.
> >>
> >>And by the way, I didn't mention the MAIN way Harshman
> >>"kissed it where it hurt": he hurled unsupportable insults at me
> >>for the way I handled cladistics, falsely accusing me of ignorance,
> >>in order to deflect attention from YOUR ignorance.
> >
> > "Oh look! Everyone is out of step except Petey!"

Bob is here conflating two unscrupulous people, himself and his
benefactor Harshman, with "Everyone."

IOW, he is saying, "Le talk.origins, c'est Harshman et moi."
Of course, he doesn't mean it literally; he just figures
that the two-to-one odds give him plenty of basis for his
condescending flippancy.

> >>> >By the way, IIRC I learned the expression "snip-n-snark" from you, referring
> >>> >to the action of someone who also deserved it.
> >>>
> >>> Actually, you did not; you learned it from another poster
> >>> who is also disgusted with your arrogant condescension.
> >>
> >>Oh? Who would that have been? [S]he wasn't talking about me, but
> >>about a short-term interloper in talk.origins who indulged
> >>in an orgy of snip-n-snark against all kinds of people. IIRC
> >>you and [s]he were teaming up against this interloper, but
> >>I couldn't remember who your teammate was.
> >
> > Nice attempt at deflection, but you simply confirmed what I
> > wrote, that the term "snip-n-snark" did not originate with
> > me, despite your false assertion above.
> >
> >>Good job, by the way.
> >
> > Thanks.
> >
> >>I'd dearly love to know who would think of ME as being arrogant
> >>and condescending, but would NOT think of YOU that way.
> >
> > Why not take a vote?
>
> Isn't that what he just did?

No, I did not. If Bob Casanova were to name the person who used
"snip-n-snark" on that occasion, he'd have answered the question
to my satisfaction. He could have suspected that from the context.

My suspicion is that Bob is confusing "snip-n-snark" with
the (much more recently) much-bandied term "snip-n-deceive"
and is alluding to the only person who ever used it against me.

But even that one person hasn't claimed, so far, to think
that Bob is NOT arrogant and condescending.

> >>> HTH,
> >>> and try to keep up.
> >
> >>This happened over a year ago, so "keep up" is inappropriate.
> >
> > You brought it up, so "keep up" is entirely appropriate.

Unfortunately for him, Bob has not given any indication of
what "keeping up" would entail in this situation. In line with
my suspicion, I do NOT think it means spending untold hours
poring over t.o. archives to find out who that other person was,
the one from whom I first saw the expression, "snip-n-snark."

And perhaps it WAS Bob, his denial notwithstanding.

Peter Nyikos

[jillery]

Could you possibly find something even more irrelevant to yammer
about? Perhaps something about bat sonar?

[Bob Casanova]

On Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:15:06 -0700 (PDT), the following

You don't moralize; you whine.

>The statement that he snipped is an embarrassment to him and
>to Harshman, and he doesn't even have the chutzpah to deny it.
>
>His latest gambit is to make the ridiculous statement
>that his hypocrisy and ignorance about *Proconsul*
>[which you witnessed] is "eating [me] up inside". Someone working
>the other side of the street might claim that I am having
>*Schadenfreude* over it, but that is also incorrect, though
>not so wildly incorrect as his claim.

And yet you repeatedly bring it up, months after the fact.
If that isn't an indication of obsession I don't know how to
characterize it.

Should I continue, every time you do so, to bring up your
failure to support your evaluation of the later terms in the
Drake Equation, and refer to that lack as "dishonest" and
"hypocritical"? Or maybe "ignorant"? You seem enamored of
those terms.

>> > Your morality is a
>> > separate issue, and I have no personal experience, here or
>> > elsewhere, on which to base a conclusion.
>
>One only has to look up the word "moralizing" in a good dictionary
>and review what has transpired between us on this thread. If the morality of
>truth v. falsehood is supposed to be MY morality, and not Bob's,
>he is only helping to confirm that he is, indeed, an amoral jerk.
>
>
>> >>You've practically cornered the talk.origins market on condescension.
>> >>That's why it was so entertaining when Glenn and I deflated you in
>> >>the process of taking apart your amateurish claims about *Proconsul*
>> >>back in December. You had made one condescending remark after
>> >>another to Glenn.
>> >>
>> >>And you even made some to me, as though you were lecturing to
>> >>a creationist.
>> >>
>> >>And by the way, I didn't mention the MAIN way Harshman
>> >>"kissed it where it hurt": he hurled unsupportable insults at me
>> >>for the way I handled cladistics, falsely accusing me of ignorance,
>> >>in order to deflect attention from YOUR ignorance.
>> >
>> > "Oh look! Everyone is out of step except Petey!"
>
>Bob is here conflating two unscrupulous people, himself and his
>benefactor Harshman, with "Everyone."

And yet you perpetually whine about anyone who disagrees
with you...

And I sincerely doubt John gives a rat's ass about anything
I post, other than to correct it when I'm wrong about
biology (which has happened with some regularity as I try to
learn more), I'd hardly characterize him as my "benefactor"
other than via imparting technical knowledge to me.

But unlike you, he isn't prone to attempting to resurrect
those errors months later in order to score a "gotcha". He's
a professional, you're just another self-indulgent whiner.

>IOW, he is saying, "Le talk.origins, c'est Harshman et moi."
>Of course, he doesn't mean it literally; he just figures
>that the two-to-one odds give him plenty of basis for his
>condescending flippancy.

And yet I never mentioned Harshman; I left it to you to do
that. But then, dragging in irrelevancies is part of your
"schtick".

>> >>> >By the way, IIRC I learned the expression "snip-n-snark" from you, referring
>> >>> >to the action of someone who also deserved it.
>> >>>
>> >>> Actually, you did not; you learned it from another poster
>> >>> who is also disgusted with your arrogant condescension.
>> >>
>> >>Oh? Who would that have been? [S]he wasn't talking about me, but
>> >>about a short-term interloper in talk.origins who indulged
>> >>in an orgy of snip-n-snark against all kinds of people. IIRC
>> >>you and [s]he were teaming up against this interloper, but
>> >>I couldn't remember who your teammate was.
>> >
>> > Nice attempt at deflection, but you simply confirmed what I
>> > wrote, that the term "snip-n-snark" did not originate with
>> > me, despite your false assertion above.
>> >
>> >>Good job, by the way.
>> >
>> > Thanks.
>> >
>> >>I'd dearly love to know who would think of ME as being arrogant
>> >>and condescending, but would NOT think of YOU that way.
>> >
>> > Why not take a vote?
>>
>> Isn't that what he just did?
>
>No, I did not. If Bob Casanova were to name the person who used
>"snip-n-snark" on that occasion, he'd have answered the question
>to my satisfaction. He could have suspected that from the context.
>
>My suspicion is that Bob is confusing "snip-n-snark" with
>the (much more recently) much-bandied term "snip-n-deceive"
>and is alluding to the only person who ever used it against me.

And you would be incorrect. Again.

>But even that one person hasn't claimed, so far, to think
>that Bob is NOT arrogant and condescending.

"Oh, look! No one bothered to disagree with my idiotic
assertion, so I'm right!"

Duh.

>> >>> HTH,
>> >>> and try to keep up.
>> >
>> >>This happened over a year ago, so "keep up" is inappropriate.
>> >
>> > You brought it up, so "keep up" is entirely appropriate.
>
>Unfortunately for him, Bob has not given any indication of
>what "keeping up" would entail in this situation. In line with
>my suspicion, I do NOT think it means spending untold hours
>poring over t.o. archives to find out who that other person was,
>the one from whom I first saw the expression, "snip-n-snark."
>
>And perhaps it WAS Bob, his denial notwithstanding.

No, it wasn't; "Yeah, and how 'bout them Mets?" was.

That aside, whine much?

[John Harshman]

On 8/29/16 11:15 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:

> The statement that he snipped is an embarrassment to him and
> to Harshman, and he doesn't even have the chutzpah to deny it.

Say what, now?

[jillery]

Oh my, you're in trouble now.

[Peter Nyikos]

You remind me about something I wrote to Glenn about Norman
back in April:

Richard reminds me of the little kid who will play ball as long
as he thinks he is winning, but as soon as it is obvious that he
is losing, he picks up his ball and goes home.

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/talk.origins/88qfQjjSVQg/w6m_jeVAKgAJ
Message-ID: <398b901c-12e3-4b7e...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Chemistry Nobel Prize Based on Design Inference
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2016 17:42:02 -0700 (PDT)

The obvious "translation" in the case under scrutiny is not the
correct one. The following is correct:

Jillery reminds me of the little kid who will play ball as long
as he thinks he and his partner are winning, but as soon as
it is obvious that the partner is losing, he picks up his
ball and goes home.

The analogue of "the partner" in this case is Bob Casanova, who
evidently found my reply to Glenn being relevant to his purposes.
To continue the analogy: the partner had brought his own ball, and the
game continued.

> Perhaps something about bat sonar?

That is certainly relevant to the t.o. charter, and I've
discussed that in the past, but I'm at least equally fond
of discussing bat flight. Here is a fascinating article about that.

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2011/03/05/visualising-protobats/

I joined the discussion of the article rather late, but at least I
steered it back towards a good point that someone had made early in
the discussion, and which others had ignored in the meantime.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer
The original USC

[Peter Nyikos]

On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 7:06:30 PM UTC-4, Jonathan wrote:

> Parasites in prose and poetry...

>
> From The Nature Is Beautiful Department

You're using some heavy-handed sarcasm here, Jonathan.

>
> "The common barnacle (Sacculina) begins its parasitic life
> as a free-swimming larva.

The *common* barnacle? The one that covers wharf pilings and
the bottoms of boats and ships? Which species became the
parasite that is described next?

The female barnacle (as insidious
> as any woman!) settles on a crab, crawls to a leg joint
> and pokes a small entry hole.
>
> She then squeezes her soft parts inside (leaving her shell behind)
> and wends her single-minded way to the abdomen where she dines
> on the available nutrients. As she grows, she forms a protrusion
> in the crab's shell and then sends out extensions - or "roots" -
> of her own body throughout the crab, even to the very tips
> of its eye stalks. As a result the crab soon no longer sheds
> its shell, grows, or produces eggs or sperm. In essence, the
> crab becomes a zombie vehicle which lives only to serve its
> parasitic guest.
>
>
> As if that weren't disturbing enough, the female furthermore
> makes a pinhole in the host's abdomen to attract the tiny
> male Sacculina, who squeezes himself into the crab in the
> same fashion as the female had earlier. They then fertilize
> each other for the remainder of their lives, and manipulate
> the crab's hormonal system so that the crab periodically
> scales a high rock, pushes out the parasites'
> young'uns and even waves its claws in the water to
> spread them on their merry way - just as it would do
> for its own offspring."

I wonder to what extent the remnants of the crab are
really "doing" these things and whether the situation
is just a bit more like the innocent case of the horseshoe crab
just using the shell of a mollusk to protect itself.

IOW, is there really much left of the original organs of
the crab that they can really be said to be doing the
above things, or is it really the barnacle manipulating
the crab's body with its own body parts? Specifically, is the central
nervous system of the crab still doing the actual moving of
the crab as described above?

<snip>

> This day relenting God
> Hath placed within my hand
> A wondrous thing; and God
> Be praised. At His command,
> Seeking His secret deeds
> With tears and toiling breath,
> I find thy cunning seeds,
> O million-murdering Death.
> I know this little thing
> A myriad men will save.
> O Death, where is thy sting?
> Thy victory, O Grave?
>
>
> ~ Sir Ronald Ross
>
> awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1902
> for proving the role of Anopheles mosquitoes
> in the transmission of malaria parasites
> in humans.
> https://athnablog.wordpress.com/2016/06/17/malaria-poetry-and-the-power-of-the-written-word/

Unfortunately, mosquitoes of all kinds are making a comeback, partly
thanks to the decades-long ban on DDT. Maybe some day, even
New York carriers of the sickle cell trait will count themselves
fortunate. [Except, of course, for the ones whose close relatives
are homozygous and suffer from sickle cell anemia.]

> So Nat'ralists observe, a flea
> Hath smaller fleas that on him prey;
> And these have smaller fleas to bite 'em,
> And so proceed ad infinitum.
>
> ~Dean Swift

According to Wikipedia, that's Jonathan Swift, who was made Dean of St
Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin. To make matters confusing, he had a
relative named Deane Swift, and I wonder whether the original
poem is really due to him.

What may be the original is here along with variations:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Siphonaptera

Some variations are very loose, and I was delighted to find the
following variation in that Wiki page; I last saw it three fourths
of a lifetime ago, before the word "fractal" was coined:

Lewis F. Richardson adapted the poem to meteorology,
specifically discussing fractal wind patterns:

Big whorls have little whorls
That feed on their velocity;
And little whorls have lesser whorls
And so on to viscosity.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer

The original USC, Columbia

[RSNorman]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:52:30 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:

>On Monday, August 22, 2016 at 7:06:30 PM UTC-4, Jonathan wrote:
>
>> Parasites in prose and poetry...
>
>>
>> From The Nature Is Beautiful Department
>
>You're using some heavy-handed sarcasm here, Jonathan.
>
>>
>> "The common barnacle (Sacculina) begins its parasitic life
>> as a free-swimming larva.
>
>The *common* barnacle? The one that covers wharf pilings and
>the bottoms of boats and ships? Which species became the
>parasite that is described next?
>

The barnacle, Sacculina, does exactly what is described. You actually
have to read the text to understand the subject. As to how common it
is, Wikipedia says (citing a reference) "Depending on the location,
the prevalence of this unusual crustacean parasite in its crab host
can be as high as 50%.[2]" I wouldn't call that "rare"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacculina

Perhaps you really mean "hermit crab" instead of "horseshoe crab".
Extremely different type of organism.

Read the Wiki piece to see just how the crab behaves in response to
the parasitic infestation.

>IOW, is there really much left of the original organs of
>the crab that they can really be said to be doing the
>above things, or is it really the barnacle manipulating
>the crab's body with its own body parts? Specifically, is the central
>nervous system of the crab still doing the actual moving of
>the crab as described above?
>

It is the crab that does those things.

[RSNorman]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:10:25 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
<nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:


> Richard reminds me of the little kid who will play ball as long
> as he thinks he is winning, but as soon as it is obvious that he
> is losing, he picks up his ball and goes home.
>

Perhaps Richard is aware of the futility of endless rehashing of
exactly the same arguments in the same way over and over and over.

[jillery]

On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 15:10:25 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos

Pathetic evasion. Your irrelevant comments rapidly overwhelm any
intelligent context. Once you become involved in a thread, it's a
waste of time to tease out any coherent content, as this post amply
demonstrates. This happens so often, it's reasonable to conclude
that's your intent.

[Peter Nyikos]

Yes, you see the futility of continuing a broken record routine
about your select group of "things rehashed" while ignoring
corrections to some of the things that you said earlier but
are NOT rehashing.

That is exactly what happened in the thread where I made the
comment that you are quoting. You had made a claim about Yockey
that you endorsed, and ignored (1) my comments about how badly wrong
Yockey's claim was and (2) Glenn's request for
evidence that Yockey contradicted himself and (3) my
evidence that Yockey was CORRECT in something you
refused to endorse:

____________________excerpts________________________________

On Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at 1:22:33 AM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:
> On Mon, 4 Apr 2016 17:42:02 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos
> <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote:
>
> >On Monday, April 4, 2016 at 5:32:35 PM UTC-4, Glenn wrote:
> >> "Peter Nyikos" <nyi...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message news:a486e130-19a6-493b...@googlegroups.com...
> >> > On Monday, April 4, 2016 at 1:37:34 PM UTC-4, RSNorman wrote:

> >> >> Yockey still
> >> >> asserts quite clearly that there is no irreducible complexity in
> >> >> biology, including both abiogenesis and evolution,
> >> >
> >> Since Richard admitted that Yockey said abiogenesis is unknowable, does Yockey contradict himself somewhere (Richard doesn't provide the quote) by "clearly asserting" there is no irreducible complexity in abiogenesis? Non-scientific minds want to know.
> >
> >I certainly don't see how he could be contradicting himself, although
> >with Yockey's screwball concept of irreducible complexity, perhaps
> >Richard can dig something up. But I'm not laying any bets on him even
> >*trying* to do so, or even addressing what you wrote just now.

And, true to form, you did NOT address this issue below, Richard.

> >Richard reminds me of the little kid who will play ball as long
> >as he thinks he is winning, but as soon as it is obvious that he
> >is losing, he picks up his ball and goes home.

See below: "goes home" is performed by your pompous claim that we'd
just be repeating ourselves if we continued. And like a spoiled kid,
you went ahead and repeated yourself at the end, to no purpose
that I am able to divine.

[...]

> For Glenn: I was the first here to report that Yockey believes that
> "the origin of life is unsolvable as a scientific problem." Nothing
> that I was forced finally to admit since I am the one that told you
> about it.

You were not forced to finally admit anything, even though I challenged
you to distinguish between that statement and one that Harshman
endorsed, which could be paraphrased as "the question of direct
ancestry of Hyracotherium -> Equus is unsolvable as a scientific
problem".

And the reason you were not forced to finally admit that Yockey
is completely correct in saying this is that Harshman has your
back, and you have Harshman's back, and a number of people
(including Simpson, Isaak, and Casanova) have Harshman's back.

And so even USA-style waterboarding could not make you admit
in public that Yockey is correct or that Harshman is incorrect.

================================= end of excerpts
from
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/88qfQjjSVQg/YodDuLtuKgAJ

Subject: Re: Chemistry Nobel Prize Based on Design Inference

Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2016 07:39:40 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <28d39d18-3727-41ea...@googlegroups.com>

It gets even worse -- I'm sparing you the details further
down in the same post. There, you really lost your cool against me,
and I set you to rights so strongly that
you never dared reply to me on that thread again.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Department of Math. -- standard disclaimer --
The original USC, in SC

[RSNorman]

On Wed, 31 Aug 2016 08:24:15 -0700 (PDT), Peter Nyikos

Yockey wrote a very bad book. He clearly explained his reasoning why
intelligent design and irreducible complexity are wrong. I am not the
one who originally brought up that book in the first place. Whatever
Yockey says about abiogenesis he clearly rules out ID and IC. If he
is so wrong about ID and IC then why isn't he equally wrong about
abiogenesis? You want to have it all ways.

We went through this time and time again and I got tired of playing
that game, seeing no end in sight as we repeated the same thing merely
occasionally using different words.

You have a tendency sometimes to challenge me about things I have no
interest in, such as the ancestry of Hyracotherium. I saw, and still
see, no reason to 'answer' your challenge because there is nothing I
can say about the subject.

You have on rare intervals provoked me into "losing my cool". That is
something you should be very familiar with since an awful lot of
people here do just that. I see no reason to reply to your complaints
on that subject. It was impolite for me to do that, no matter how
provoked I may have been. Following that I saw nothing new I could to
contribute to the thread so I withdrew.

I do not subscribe to the "last person posting wins" notion. If you
think I automatically lose by dropping out then so be it. I lose.
Frankly I let other people here, if any by chance are crazy enough to
follow all this nonsense, decide on "winners" and "losers", on who is
right and who wrong. If they think you are correct, then so much the
worse for me. I can live with that.