The Ivory Tower Legacy . . . . . . .

[Bob Keeter]

What if all of the NSF grants dried up? Taxpayers (and voters)
could make that happen.

www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/04/30/science.understanding.ap/-
index.html

Perhaps Darwinian selection applies at the professional as
well as chromosomal levels. Communicate, educate or by virtue
of being cut off from the financial and political support of
an informed public, become extinct?

Or we could wring our hands and rant at the injustice, shrilly
proclaim our innate superiority, alienate the 95% of the world
that is not scientifically oriented, and let everything pass
us by! Then, to everyone's detriment, science loses out to WWF
and we become a whole new class of dinosaur?

Perhaps hobnobbing and TALKING with (not lecturing,
insulting or berating) the common people is the price we all
have to pay! ;-)

Yes that is the smiley face for sarcasm! 8-))

Regards bk

[Ejudy]

Bob Keeter <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Perhaps hobnobbing and TALKING with (not lecturing,
> insulting or berating) the common people is the price we all
> have to pay! ;-)
>
> Yes that is the smiley face for sarcasm! 8-))
>
> Regards bk

Your agenda is specific and aimed at one person.

ejudy

[John H. Wi]

"Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:B8F4CCFD.CA53%rkeeter@earthlink.net...
> What if all of the NSF grants dried up? Taxpayers (and
> voters) could make that happen.
>
> www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/04/30/science.understanding.a-
> p/index.html
>
bCommunicate, educate or by virtue of being cut off from
> the financial and political support of an informed public,
> become extinct?
>
> Or we could wring our hands and rant at the injustice,
> shrilly proclaim
our
> innate superiority, alienate the 95% of the world that is
> not
scientifically
> oriented, and let everything pass us by! Then, to everyone's
> detriment, science loses out to WWF and we become a whole
> new class of dinosaur?
>
> Perhaps hobnobbing and TALKING with (not lecturing,
> insulting or berating) the common people is the price we all
> have to pay! ;-)
>
Yes, and no. I suspect the rise of fundmentalism was due
to the space race and academic deferments. That is, a
large number of young people who cared nothing for
academic pursuits were sold on the idea of going to
college with a promise of pie in the sky, or with the
immediate benefit of dodging the draft. While they
weren't told this, I suspect many of them figured all
they would have to do would be to copy of the paper of
the nerd. From "Dilbert" and my own experience, some were
able to make careers on this basis. More were told they
weren't smart enough. "Wouldn't you like to have one of
these good jobs - well, you can't. Nyah, nyah, nyah." The
reaction of many was to hell with science. In other
words, all the evils that Standen remarks on in _Science
is a Sacred Cow_ occurred, and in addition, the country
had an excess of academic plant and had to take in a lot
of foreign students, some of whom scoped out the country
for terrorism) which further aggravated the people who
had expected a free ride. The most dedicated creationist
at the Senior Center is a guy with some education in
nautical engineering. Sure, make information available to
those who are interested. Hope the hostile ignore you.
But your last paragraph says it - no point in my
repeating. Cheers john GW

[Philip Dei]

On Wed, 01 May 2002 14:37:37 GMT, "John H. Wilson"
<j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:

> Yes, and no. I suspect the rise of fundmentalism was due
> to the space race and academic deferments. That is, a
> large number of young people who cared nothing for
> academic pursuits were sold on the idea of going to
> college with a promise of pie in the sky, or with the
> immediate benefit of dodging the draft. While they
> weren't told this, I suspect many of them figured all
> they would have to do would be to copy of the paper of
> the nerd.

If you have to copy a paper you missed the point of the
educational system. I know people who faked their way all the
way through the educational system and became Val Dictorian.
One guy was high on pot when he recieved his. If your goal is
to cheat life to the fullest, become a business major and buy
a car dealership, and leave this NG.

>From "Dilbert" and my own experience, some were able to make
>careers on this basis.

Of course.

> More were told they weren't smart enough. "Wouldn't you
> like to have one of these good jobs - well, you can't.
> Nyah, nyah, nyah." The reaction of many was to hell with
> science.

Science is not a "real" job. Ever look at the pay scale for
acedemic scientist. Salary sacrafice. If you are headed into
scientist looking for $s you got another thing coming. There
is one guy working here who was in the military, he
essentially has a promotion here over is military title, his
pay is about 1/3rd to 1/2 of military pay.

> In other words, all the evils that Standen remarks on
> in _Science is a Sacred Cow_ occurred, and in addition,
> the country had an excess of academic plant and had to
> take in a lot of foreign students, some of whom scoped
> out the country for terrorism) which further aggravated
> the people who had expected a free ride.

See what Bob doesn't understand that science is something you
have to sacrifice to earn. When he joined the military he went
through a 3 mo boot camp. The graduate student goes through a
5 to 7 year boot camp. Like a soldier who spends his life in
special ops and on 'you don't exist' missions, the product of
scientific education is often too over educated for society to
deal with. The la-de-da-isms of normal social life disappeared
somewhere between the last days of college and the first 18
months of graduate school. IOW, graduate school is designed to
beat the Bob Keeter thinking out of you the same way Boot Camp
is designed to beat the Punk out of you. The end product of
the scientific education is to question, analyze, QUANTITATE,
condition, formulate and hypothesize. This can apply to just
about everything, like why people serve traditional religions
and call it spirituality (even as their priest are screwing
their kids in the ass) to why politicians are in grandious
denial over the fact that we are close to the end of a
predicatable warm age and yet the climate is reaching
temperature levels not seen in the last 1.3 my. Bob Keeter
once in his life should take all his scrambled thoughts and
try, his dang best to create a theory and offer his stuff up a
single acedemic advisory committee like the one that graduate
students have to subject their thoughts and results to. Then I
think Bob would be humbled enough to shut his trap.

> The most dedicated creationist at the Senior Center is
> a guy with some education in nautical engineering.
> Sure, make information available to those who are
> interested. Hope the hostile ignore you. But your last
> paragraph says it - no point in my repeating.

No real scientist I have ever met spent more than a few
glancing moments worrying about creationism. Creationist
thinking is so far down in acedemia that those who do real
studies of molecular evolution would compare it to an annoying
but largely innocuous gnat. There were three creationist
graduate students that were in our department that I know of.
1 eventually graduated, his project turned 'evolutionary' in
the end and he wrenched over the issue, 'well this microbe
over here might have evolved but humans were created'. Two
other students got kicked out because of poor grades and they
pissed off people by hanging pictures of dead fetuses on the
wall. One day one disappeared and 2 months later the other was
gone. In my particular class of student of the 14 students who
entered that year only 6 left with Ph.Ds, I was the only
american of 4 to finish graduate school (hint-hint). Now
imagine a boot camp in which 60% of the trainees die or are
enfirmed because of exhaustion and are unable to continue. The
first 2 or 3 commitee meetings a graduate student goes through
are often literal hell, I had students crying in my lap. In
essence you give everything you have to a project and the
committee wants to know why you havent done more. Through in a
few stupid comments (say creationist thinking) and you will
get raked over the coals.

In the end the creationist will loose out, in the same way
tribal gods loose out to unifying religions, so the 'chaff'
in the unifying religions will loose out to science, it is
but a matter of time, traditionalisms and glorified myth
will be shown as to what it is, and people will create
new-age myths to replace them with. People used to believe
the world was flat, remember. That if you went to far out to
see Sirens would appear and sea monsters would consume your
ship. Cats were the sign of the devil. The earth was the
center of the universe. Women were made from the rib of man.
People lived to be a 1000 years of age. Each of these myth
get scrape back until the core of the myth is challenged.
The tide of belief in society ebbs and flows, it looks like
the creationist have the upper hand now, but remember that
eugenics and supremacy had germany as the strongest nation
on the earth 50-100 years ago. What people in america
believe determines americas destiny, but it does not
determine the destiny of the world. If our beliefs falter,
China is but one step behind us ready to take over our
leadership role in the same way we and the soviets took the
leadership role from germany, who took it from great
britian, who took it from france. And in the same way the
soviets faultered in their ideology we will also faulter.

Look at Bob's beautiful DEMOCRACY today. People took to
smoking, science told them it was real bad for them, so they
stopped, but now they are greatly overweight. Kids don't
work any more, even though our genes were designed that a
kid of 14 would be preparing for building his nest and
having a family, a child less that the age of 14 is
virtually forbidden from any form of manual labor. Our
society knows the danger of gluttony, but these beautiful
religions which could not stop people from being racist in
the <50s, smokers in the 40s to 70s and now glutton in the
80s and 90s. Come to acedemia, how many people in acedemia
are overweight, how many people smoke or are bad-mounthing
rascist. See acedemia is ahead of society, we do the
cost-benefit analysis in our heads we can live on less$s
because our lifestyles are more efficient. We don't need the
surgeon general to warn we warn the surgeon general, and we
come to the answer within ourselves. Whereas "society"
preaches how acedemia is all heathens out to undermine their
religion while they sit aournd all day tossing fat/sugar
calories in their pie-hole and running up everyones health
care cost in total ambivilance while their kids are getting
corn-holed in their local church.

In acedemia you can have a lab with Muslims, Buddhist,
Catholics, Protestant, Jews working side by side, each
tolerant of other beliefs while suppresing their own beliefs
for tolerances sake, because the overriding religion of
acedemia is science, and science unifies all peoples from all
places on this earth where science is done. You don't have to
pledge allegiance to any god to join, kiss someones ring,
where you hat a certain way, cover your face over. The god you
have to put before is the god of integrety, the faith you have
is toward uncovering a better answer than the answer you
brought forth yesterday and creating a better question than
you created the day before, to take unknowns and make them
known. The religious in this land, think that their god is
going to come and rescue them at the last moment and save
their body, the reality is that science is the one who comes
to the rescue with new drugs and techniques. So one can draw
out a couple of possible conclusions.

k. From the bible these people who would have us revoke
evolution from the textbood are Hypocrits.

l. The god that has not revealed himself is science, which
comes their rescue at the last minute as 'miracle' to
remove their tumors and unclog their choked up hearts and
give them the 76 year promised in the bible. It is science
that created the new anti-psychotic drug to treat the
traumatized kiddies so that they don't drive tanks into
cafeterias. They still do not see this god?

Even more to the point, the guy with the sugeons knife (or
computer guided laser) in his hand is more likely to be of
oriental extraction, quasi-buddhist, with parents who don't
have all these hang-ups about religion and evolution
obstructing their vision of their kids future.

If you are in this NG, seems to me your mind should be on
the mechanism of later hominoid evolution and not on whether
or not 3.5 billion years ago a 'strain' of bacteria parted
ways and became 2 strains of bacteria. This is the problem
with this group, we can't have a discussion of more than a
few posts before some idiot drags the conversation off into
pointless 'gutterland'. For all those who are interested in
the discussion of PA and disinterested in creation, just
kill-file all these folks who like to drag the conversation
into OFF-TOPIC land. If you want to discuss creationism, try
TALK-ORIGINS. If your source of information about Evolution
(Harry) is TALK-ORIGINS, then I suggest you go back their
because that is where that information belongs. Bobs
activities may seem musical to himself, but they are more or
less a distraction in every group I've seen him post in. Its
time that he bothered to get himself educated or leave. We
can be tolerant of a person who is trying to improve
himself, but how should we deal with individuals who are
trying to reshape science to their 'gutteral' view of how
science should be. Ivory Towers are frequently wrong, but
the one thing that is clear if you are in those Ivory Towers
is that there is alot of debate going on, as it should be,
and the Ivory Towers know how to correct their
innaccuracies. Religion on the other hand doesn't. I see so
many people 'worried' about how the roman catholic church is
responding to child abuse, which I find incredibly
laughable. The roman catholics (most) I knew in San Antonio
expected the priest to fool around, they had a joke about
every kind of priestly malfeasance you could think of, they
knew it was a TRADITION.

[Father Jaun and the Bandito has to be the funniest though,
cant tell it here]

Its those poor dumb people out their who confuse
traditionalisms for spirituality, those are the ones getting
all tripped up by this scandal. See the roman catholic church
[the organization not the people] takes 100s of 1000s of
years to fix itself, its a tradition based organization. The
problem with these organizations it that they killed for
traditions sake, so change (evolution) is a admittion that
they killed and suppressed for false reasons. Science takes
months, weeks, and few years to fix its missassumptions
generally and moves on. Science, in general, does not kill
people, there is the occasional drug snaffu, but the
scientist of today could give a rat's ass whether another
scientist 10 years ago did something real stupid, in fact
graduate students often take pleasure in 'revealing the
weaknesses' up their advisor or the work of some other
colleage. We accept evolution of science because we have been
seeded with the understanding of the evolution of life.
Society may not like this level of critique, but thats how
science generates so many innovations so rapidly.

Now I am sure you are now primed with all kinds of Quotes
whereby we are going back into the discussion of Neandertal
culture and Comparative cranial capacity. You take from your
literary source and I will take from mine. But the thing about
Ivory Towers is that they give you a feel for what is
meaningful data and what is largely BS. At some point in time
(never) I amy have direct access to the crania of Neandertals
such that I can draw my own conclusions versus the concusions
of 'not very objective' physical PA, and I might find I have
overstated someones case. But as per the issue of mtDNA, I
found such-and-such techniques to be wrong and still reached
virtually the same conclusion by a different set of
techniques. You can argue well 'you may know DNA but you know
nothing about physcial PA', take my word on this one, the
cranial differences between humans and Neandertals is not
simply the reworking of the brain case, alot of things have to
shift for that to be true. The microevolution of behavior
predispositions changes over time, whether or not you see
absolute proof is immaterial to me, because as a biochemist
(even higher up the tower than the molecular clonologist) we
can see the consequences of that change within the tissues of
extant animals. Nothing new remains constant, newly derived
features undergo the most rapid evolutionary change
(refinements) some that you may see, but the large majority
are invisible.

Can you see the increased frequence of alcohol dehydorgenase
in populations of people who frequently drink alcohol. How
about the increased frequency of diabetes resistance in
populations that consume large amounts of sugar. How about
increases in Hb levels and oxygen carrying capacity in peoples
that lived for generations at high altitudes. How about the
ability to resist dehydration in peoples who lived for long
periods in desert climates. How about the differences in
nightime heartrates in the inuit/eskimoe population versus the
non-inuit counterparts living in the same region. See if
you're waiting for some difference to slap you in the face
before you see it, you are probably going to be waiting along
time, of course you could let the study of evolution slap you
in the face and then you would be primed to looked for
differences you otherwise would choose not to see. Philip
[pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu] http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Bob Keeter]

in article R4Tz8.21219$mF4.12478@nwrddc01.gnilink.net, John
H. Wilson at
j.gissw@verizon.net wrote on 5/1/02 9:37 AM:

>
>> "Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>> news:B8F4CCFD.CA53%rkeeter@earthlink.net... What if all of
>> the NSF grants dried up? Taxpayers (and voters) could make
>> that happen.
>
>> www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/04/30/science.understanding.-
>> ap/index.html
>>
>> bCommunicate, educate or by virtue of being cut off from
>> the financial and political support of an informed public,
>> become extinct?
>
>> Or we could wring our hands and rant at the injustice,
>> shrilly proclaim our innate superiority, alienate the 95%
>> of the world that is not scientifically oriented, and let
>> everything pass us by! Then, to everyone's detriment,
>> science loses out to WWF and we become a whole new class of
>> dinosaur?
>>
>> Perhaps hobnobbing and TALKING with (not lecturing,
>> insulting or berating) the common people is the price we
>> all have to pay! ;-)
>>
> Yes, and no. I suspect the rise of fundmentalism was due to
> the space race and academic deferments. That is, a large
> number of young people who cared nothing for academic
> pursuits were sold on the idea of going to college with a
> promise of pie in the sky, or with the immediate benefit of
> dodging the draft.

Fundamentalism is not really the problem; its apathy. A
fundamentalist that has the gumption to stand up and state his
position is at worst a known enemy and at best a very viable
target for a little bit of scientific prosetylizing. Not the
kind of prosetylizing that demeans his religion or him for
holding to it, but the kind of prosetylizing that shows him
that science is not a threat! APATHY is the enemy! The article
I referenced did mention that there were religious leaders
that had positions on some of the scientific questions, but
today, where are the majorities? The majorities are I suspect
in the "i really couldnt care less" pile.

If you were around and paying attention in the early '60s
EVERY kid wanted to go to the moon, design a new airplane, go
deeper in the ocean than ever before or discover a cure for
cancer. Science, largely because of the space program, was a
big window on "tomorrow" and just about EVERYBODY was in the
bandwagon! Even while the Vietnam war was going on, we were
dumping billions into simply planting a flag and a few
footprints on the Moon. For myself, I remember I could see the
ugliness of Vietnam every night on CBS and I could see the
possibilities of the space program and all of the science that
came spilling out of it, and I KNEW which I preferred.

> While they weren't told this, I suspect many of them figured
> all they would have to do would be to copy of the paper of
> the nerd. From "Dilbert" and my own experience, some were
> able to make careers on this basis. More were told they
> weren't smart enough. "Wouldn't you like to have one of
> these good jobs
> - well, you can't. Nyah, nyah, nyah." The reaction of many
> was to hell with science. In other words, all the evils
> that Standen remarks on in _Science is a Sacred Cow_
> occurred, and in addition, the country had an excess of
> academic plant and had to take in a lot of foreign
> students, some of whom scoped out the country for
> terrorism) which further aggravated the people who had
> expected a free ride. The most dedicated creationist at
> the Senior Center is a guy with some education in
> nautical engineering. Sure, make information available to
> those who are interested. Hope the hostile ignore you.
> But your last paragraph says it - no point in my
> repeating. Cheers john GW
>

Well, John, you can start to see little bits of change. NASA
is publishing, hot off the presses, the Martian Orbiter
pictures for every Tom, Dick and Harry to look at, analyze and
PARTICIPATE in. Think that was not driven by a need to get
some letters to congressmen? Its reality!

Kennedy's assasination and his bold move to make a lunar
landing FACT in less than 10 years galvanized a group of
people. That group of people was the science "congregation".
They sucked up the science sermon and voted the science
dollars. Perhaps almost a religious fascination supporting a
dead president's dream and their own marvel at the things that
were being accomplished.

Get that spark AGAIN and we wont see 60% of dentists,
bookkeepers and burger-flippers not knowing the most basic
elements of science. Science books will fly off the
bookshelves, and who knows maybe even a few science professors
will keep their jobs! And prehaps, somehow we as a
civilization could actually get that drive back into the
system. Ten years of "Apollo progress" would put us where?

The problem is that its hard to win converts by ignoring the
candidates or calling them fools because they dont already
know what we might be able to teach them!

THAT is my Golden Fleece (of Argonaut fame, not Scoop
Jackson). So if I get a bit up on a soapbox, . . . . . 8-)

Take care my friend!

Regards bk

[Ejudy]

"John H. Wilson" wrote:

> Kinda late for me to become a big entrepreniur. Do you
> pay any attention to the biographical details of the
> people you talk to? Man! Or even to what they say. I
> used to have some respect for
you, as
>compared to Paul Crowley, who I regard with amusement. John
>GW
>
>
See!

The voodoo chief was right!

Amusement is taken at heavy price from every side,IMHO. A
social hybridization event or simply a total speciation?
Speciation most definitely cuz the hybrid died before it was
born. There is something rather natural about the process but
first you gotta weigh the price.

I think first we went thru a stereotyping event which sort of
functions to dehumanise ........... maybe thats why folks tend
to not listen and not care to listen cuz its a process.

And how does drift work in this kind of hypothetical
reality diorama?

Time to chill out and eat some tofu. Where i live they just
all pile in the sauna and go till nobody can talk cuz their
heart is racing then you go running like a steamy ghost over
the sand to plunge naked into cold lake superior. Then you
just feel different. Oh, beer helps a little.

And i would like to mention my opinion on fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism kills thought itself from the bottom up.
Doesn't anyone feeling comfortable with it see the news tell
us about schools teaching kids from an incredibly young age to
not use their minds and substitute a repetative propaganda
system for true inquiry?

It breeds intolerance and uses brutal social controls, for
the free spirited adventurous types who might step outside
the circle and learn the truth, and for anyone who is
chosen to become the example just by happenstance. Remember
those burka'd ladies kneeling in the sports arena in
Taliban governed Afghanistan? They had to be destroyed for
laughter, sex, singing, all the incredibly human creative
activities..........This is the extreme but its close to us
and it true. Apathy towards fundamentalism and acceptance
of it is my idea of stupidity. And that is where the
education must aim.

ejudy

[John H. Wi]

"Philip Deitiker" <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote in message
news:cn20duci9fp7sdc7rvlc1fo1msul9jfvfq@4ax.com...
> On Wed, 01 May 2002 14:37:37 GMT, "John H. Wilson"
> <j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>
> > Yes, and no. I suspect the rise of fundmentalism was
> > due to the
space
> >race and academic deferments. That is, a large number of
> >young people
who
> >cared nothing for academic pursuits were sold on the idea
> >of going to college with a promise of pie in the sky, or
> >with the immediate benefit
of
> >dodging the draft. While they weren't told this, I suspect
> >many of them figured all they would have to do would be to
> >copy of the paper of the
nerd.
>
> If you have to copy a paper you missed the point of the
> educational system. I know people who faked their way all
> the way through the educational system and became Val
> Dictorian. One guy was high on pot when he recieved his. If
> your goal is to cheat life to the fullest, become a business
> major and buy a car dealership, and leave this NG.
>
Man, posting here is like hollering down a rat hole. Do
you ever read anything others write? For your information
(though I suppose you won't read this, but will answer
it.) I 'cheated' exactly twice in my eight years of
college - because the professors told us to work together
to learn 'teamwork'. That is, I twice gave help to
people, because I thought these chiseling professors
wouldn't count the take home tests anyhow. Kinda late for
me to become a big entrepreniur. Do you pay any attention
to the biographical details of the people you talk to?
Man! Or even to what they say. I used to have some
respect for you, as compared to Paul Crowley, who I
regard with amusement. John GW

[John H. Wi]

"Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:B8F5ED66.CB2D%rkeeter@earthlink.net...
> in article R4Tz8.21219$mF4.12478@nwrddc01.gnilink.net, John
> H. Wilson at
> j.gissw@verizon.net wrote on 5/1/02 9:37 AM:
>
> >
> >> "Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> >> news:B8F4CCFD.CA53%rkeeter@earthlink.net... What if all
> >> of the NSF
grants
> >> dried up? Taxpayers (and voters) could make that happen.
> >
> >> www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/04/30/science.understandin-
> >> g.ap/index.html
> Fundamentalism is not really the problem; its apathy.
Oh, I think we can lick apathy if we can just get everyone
concerned about it.

A fundamentalist that
> has the gumption to stand up and state his position is at
> worst a known enemy and at best a very viable target for a
> little bit of scientific prosetylizing.

Good luck. Cheers John GW

[Al Zeller]

Bob Keeter wrote:
>

> THAT is my Golden Fleece (of Argonaut fame, not Scoop
> Jackson). So if I get a bit up on a soapbox, . . . . . 8-)

Think that's William Proxmire's claim to fame.

Al Zeller

[Bob Keeter]

in article 4r%z8.27755$iJ.10303@nwrddc02.gnilink.net, John
H. Wilson at
j.gissw@verizon.net wrote on 5/1/02 7:07 PM:

>
> "Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:B8F5ED66.CB2D%rkeeter@earthlink.net... in article
> R4Tz8.21219$mF4.12478@nwrddc01.gnilink.net, John H.
> Wilson at
> j.gissw@verizon.net wrote on 5/1/02 9:37 AM:
>
>>>
>>>> "Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
>>>> news:B8F4CCFD.CA53%rkeeter@earthlink.net... What if all
>>>> of the NSF grants dried up? Taxpayers (and voters) could
>>>> make that happen.
>>>>
>>>> www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/04/30/science.understandin-
>>>> g.ap/index.html

>>>> Fundamentalism is not really the problem; its apathy.

>Oh, I think we can lick apathy if we can just get everyone
>concerned about it.
>

8-))))) ROTFL. Are you SURE your first name is John and not
Yogi? Mr. Bera probably my favorite philosopher! 8-)

>>>> A fundamentalist that has the gumption to stand up and
>>>> state his position is at worst a known enemy and at best
>>>> a very viable target for a little bit of scientific
>>>> prosetylizing.
>
> Good luck. Cheers John GW
>

Well, thank you for the good wishes! Windmills are a favorite
of mine so I'll just welcome the challenge! Just have to
remember not to call that new convert candidate a damn fool
first! ;-)

Regards bk

[Philip Dei]

On Thu, 02 May 2002 00:05:24 GMT, "John H. Wilson"
<j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:

> Man, posting here is like hollering down a rat hole. Do
> you ever read anything others write? For your
> information (though I suppose you won't read this, but
> will answer it.) I 'cheated' exactly twice in my eight
> years of college - because the professors told us to
> work together to learn 'teamwork'. That is, I twice gave
> help to people, because I thought these chiseling
> professors wouldn't count the take home tests anyhow.

The comment was not specifically directed to you [hint-hint].

> Kinda late for me to become a big entrepreniur. Do you
> pay any attention to the biographical details of the
> people you talk to? Man! Or even to what they say. I
> used to have some respect for you, as compared to Paul
> Crowley, who I regard with amusement.

Why should you care what I or Paul Crowley says. That was part
of the point. Why should you care what anybody says?

Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Bob Keeter]

in article 3CD11B9D.B90E07DB@nscl.msu.edu, Al Zeller at
zeller@nscl.msu.edu wrote on 5/2/02 5:57 AM:

>
>
> Bob Keeter wrote:
>>
>
>> THAT is my Golden Fleece (of Argonaut fame, not Scoop
>> Jackson). So if I get a bit up on a soapbox, . . . . . 8-)
>
> Think that's William Proxmire's claim to fame.
>
>

You know, you are absolutely right! Would like to say that it
was a test to see if anyone was reading, but you got me! ;-)
Can I claim a simple case of Alzheimers, or do you want
blood!! 8-))

Regards bk

[John H. Wi]

"Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:B8F6074B.CB43%rkeeter@earthlink.net...
> in article 4r%z8.27755$iJ.10303@nwrddc02.gnilink.net, John
> H. Wilson at
> j.gissw@verizon.net wrote on 5/1/02 7:07 PM:
>
> >
> > "Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> > news:B8F5ED66.CB2D%rkeeter@earthlink.net... in article
> > R4Tz8.21219$mF4.12478@nwrddc01.gnilink.net, John H.
> > Wilson at
> > j.gissw@verizon.net wrote on 5/1/02 9:37 AM:
> >
> >>>
> >>>> "Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> >>>> news:B8F4CCFD.CA53%rkeeter@earthlink.net... What if all
> >>>> of the NSF
grants
> >>>> dried up? Taxpayers (and voters) could make that
> >>>> happen.
> >>>>
> >>>>
www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/04/30/science.understanding.ap/-
index.html
>
> >>>> Fundamentalism is not really the problem; its apathy.
>

Some other points did occur to me on this. Well, yes,
generally the average citizen doesn't worry too much
about such grants, I think, though someone is always
doing an expose on money wasted on "useless' research.
The point is, though, the colleges instituted a
philosophy that anyone is entitled to choose a vocation
and is discriminated against if he cannot enter it, even
if he cannot or will not do the work In other words, run
college like grade school. Paul Gans and Brian Scott were
saying that a professor these days cannot kick a student
out of class for cheating. They had "affirmative action"
in the colleges long before the phrase was coined - I
remember the 'scandal' for kicking out a cheating air
force cadet. The policy is nonsense, of course. 23000
lines of work, maybe - the wrong is in being barred into
one line, like housewife, shoeshine boy, or
mathematician, and that is _what the colleges want to do
with bright working students_. I couldn't convince Paul
or Brian of this, and they are probably more open minded
than a fundamentalist. For the current discussion, the
point is such a policy creates resentment. If a person
can get $20000 for cheating and doing nothing, why not
$50000? And of course, you can't give everyone a job or
give them all graduate degrees. When I was a graduate
student, there was just one professor really qualified to
supervise such degrees and who did actually give them. I
counted something like 10 graduate students. And some
colleges had 20 students sign up for engineering, where
one could expect to get a job. Those who were flunked out
went into education to a large degree. I doubt if they
are great fans of science, though I'm always surprised at
how little resentment I see and how much gets done by
labs with the Dilbert policies. .

>
>
> >>>> A fundamentalist that has the gumption to stand up and
> >>>> state his
position
> >>>> is at worst a known enemy and at best a very viable
> >>>> target for a
little bit
> >>>> of scientific prosetylizing.
> >
>
> Well, thank you for the good wishes! Windmills are a
> favorite of mine so I'll just welcome the challenge! Just
> have to remember not to call that
new
> convert candidate a damn fool first! ;-)
>
Well, actually, arguing with people usually doesn't
convince them - they teach that to people who want to
do political block work. But a survey of 73 creative
scientists found that a greater percentage than chance
of them had a background in the more or less minor
religions - not sure about the fundamental ones. So
some can be reasoned with. Most people don't reason,
they rationalize. Cheers John GW

[Philip Dei]

On Thu, 02 May 2002 14:00:10 GMT, "John H. Wilson"
<j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:

> For the current discussion, the point is such a policy
> creates resentment. If a person can get $20000 for
> cheating and doing nothing, why not $50000? And of
> course, you can't give everyone a job or give them all
> graduate degrees.

And this is what I am telling you. $50,000 is nothing compared
to what a financial analysts who plugs Enron stock makes. How
about 7 figures. My point which you seemed to missed is that
some people (not pointing the finger at you, OK) take college
and grad school like passing a driving test or learning the
pledge of allegiance. Study real hard, memorize what you need
to, pass a damn test and forget about it. Many med students
are like this, then they get into their 2nd or 3rd year of
college and need to take some form of organic chemistry. You
cannot 'memorize' organic chemistry, you have to understand
the fundementals of the argument. The anal retentives then
have a big problem because they never learned a fundemental in
thier life. Graduate school in the olds days was like this,
now the industry is claiming grad students are overqualified
(IOW know to much and are dangerous to the company) and so
they want dumbed down gradstudents, memorizing, yes men.

> When I was a graduate student, there was just one
> professor really qualified to supervise such degrees
> and who did actually give them. I counted something
> like 10 graduate students. And some colleges had 20
> students sign up for engineering, where one could
> expect to get a job. Those who were flunked out went
> into education to a large degree. I doubt if they are
> great fans of science, though I'm always surprised at
> how little resentment I see and how much gets done by
> labs with the Dilbert policies.

At one point last year for Ph.D. or technicians here we had
about 3 times as many positions posted as people to apply for
them. We had a position posted and every single candidate was
hired before we had a chance to interview them. 9-11 has
changed that somewhat.

> Well, actually, arguing with people usually doesn't
> convince them - they teach that to people who want to
> do political block work. But a survey of 73 creative
> scientists found that a greater percentage than chance
> of them had a background in the more or less minor
> religions - not sure about the fundamental ones. So
> some can be reasoned with. Most people don't reason,
> they rationalize.

Yes, and justify.

Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Bob Keeter]

in article KDbA8.29150$iJ.26510@nwrddc02.gnilink.net, John
H. Wilson at
j.gissw@verizon.net wrote on 5/2/02 9:00 AM:

> Snippage. . . . . . . . the problem; its apathy.
>
>
> Some other points did occur to me on this. Well, yes,
> generally the average citizen doesn't worry too much about
> such grants, I think, though someone is always doing an
> expose on money wasted on "useless' research.
>
And its much easier to see the waste in something that you
dont really understand, particularly if the practitioners are
a bit standoffish, or just plain elitists. Why should the tax
dollars from a farmer in Iowa go to studying the mating habits
of butterflies in Outer Mongolia or whatever, UNLESS of course
that farmer, or some of his family or friends, has been
exposed to the science and appreciates it a bit. THEN the few
pennies from his pockets that go to support sciences, even if
he DOESNT have an advanced degree in insect physiology, are
not resented quite so much. Perhaps even enough that he does
NOT write those letters to the congressmen about the waste,
perhaps even that he gets some value, enjoyment(?) out of the
Discovery Channel show! Who knows, maybe even the next
election he does not have to vote for a fellow who champions
cuts to all things not "farm related". 8-)

Education, be it by doctorates or Discovery is not to be
sneered at when the students go to the ballot box. Call the
man a fool, and I bet he doesnt vote for (or with) you. ;=))

> The point is, though, the colleges instituted a philosophy
> that anyone is entitled to choose a vocation and is
> discriminated against if he cannot enter it, even if he
> cannot or will not do the work In other words, run college
> like grade school.
>
Here in Ma, even that does not work. Everybody is up in arms
because of the MCAS exams (got to pass to get a HS diploma).
People are actually yelling and screaming because little
Johnny would drop out of school rather than study hard enough
to pass a pretty basic set of tests. After all having the
piece of paper (diploma) will mean so much more than actually
having the knowledge that went behind it! Had Harvard gives
out only "A's" 8-(.

> Paul Gans and Brian Scott were saying that a professor these
> days cannot kick a student out of class for cheating. They
> had "affirmative action" in the colleges long before the
> phrase was coined - I remember the 'scandal' for kicking out
> a cheating air force cadet.
>
Well, in that the academies are a bit different. Some would
say "out of tune with society" but last I checked it was still
"I will not lie cheat or steal nor tolerate anyone who does".
Even then, at least as far as I know, the adademies "honor
system" is run by the cadets themselves.

> The policy is nonsense, of course. 23000 lines of work,
> maybe - the wrong is in being barred into one line, like
> housewife, shoeshine boy, or mathematician, and that is
> _what the colleges want to do with bright working students_.
> I couldn't convince Paul or Brian of this, and they are
> probably more open minded than a fundamentalist. For the
> current discussion, the point is such a policy creates
> resentment. If a person can get $20000 for cheating and
> doing nothing, why not $50000? And of course, you can't give
> everyone a job or give them all graduate degrees. When I was
> a graduate student, there was just one professor really
> qualified to supervise such degrees and who did actually
> give them. I counted something like 10 graduate students.
> And some colleges had 20 students sign up for engineering,
> where one could expect to get a job. Those who were flunked
> out went into education to a large degree. I doubt if they
> are great fans of science, though I'm always surprised at
> how little resentment I see and how much gets done by labs
> with the Dilbert policies. .
>
As you've probably guessed, I chose engineering and the
military. . . For some strange reason, probably closely
related to my lack of ever having to STUDY paleontology and
anthropology for coursework its still offering a lot of that
same fascinated 15-yr old flavor. Wont make a buck off of it
but hey everything aint bucks! ;-)

>>
>>
>>>>>> A fundamentalist that has the gumption to stand up and
>>>>>> state his position is at worst a known enemy and at
>>>>>> best a very viable target for a little bit of
>>>>>> scientific prosetylizing.
>>>>>>
>>
>> Well, thank you for the good wishes! Windmills are a
>> favorite of mine so I'll just welcome the challenge! Just
>> have to remember not to call that new convert candidate a
>> damn fool first! ;-)
>>
> Well, actually, arguing with people usually doesn't convince
> them - they teach that to people who want to do political
> block work. But a survey of 73 creative scientists found
> that a greater percentage than chance of them had a
> background in the more or less minor religions - not sure
> about the fundamental ones. So some can be reasoned with.
> Most people don't reason, they rationalize.
>
>Cheers John GW
>

Again you are right, dead on! The trick is not to get people
to abandon their deep set beliefs, merely to TOLERATE your
own. I dont have to make every Southern Baptist into a
champion of Darwinism in order to prove to him that all
scientists are not arrogant asses. All that anonymous "he"
needs to really know is that science will not, in and of
itself, send him as well as his family and friends to a
concentration camp for believers, which Ive heard championed
(thankfully in jest) even on this newsgroup! Disagree with a
man, even strongly, and very few will hold that arguement
against you. call a man a fool and he remembers for a very
long time.

;-)

From counting up those years of schooling and your other
comments I notice that you just may have gone a bit past the
basic HS equivalency! 8-) So Id like to thank you for chiming
in and encourage you to do so more often, perhaps with a
signature block to rival some of the more shrill, less
responsible "champions" of science!

Take care my friend bk

[Bob Keeter]

in article a8r2dukre5qt5conmauhkumm9op6m65fld@4ax.com, Philip
Deitiker at pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu wrote on 5/2/02 11:55 AM:

> My point which you seemed to missed is that some people (not
> pointing the finger at you, OK) take college and grad school
> like passing a driving test or learning the pledge of
> allegiance. Study real hard, memorize what you need to, pass
> a damn test and forget about it. Many med students are like
> this, then they get into their 2nd or 3rd year of college
> and need to take some form of organic chemistry. You cannot
> 'memorize' organic chemistry, you have to understand the
> fundementals of the argument. The anal retentives then have
> a big problem because they never learned a fundemental in
> thier life. Graduate school in the olds days was like this,
> now the industry is claiming grad students are overqualified
> (IOW know to much and are dangerous to the company) and so
> they want dumbed down gradstudents, memorizing, yes men.
>

Geez, Philip ole boy, you do grovel around real nice with this
here, "John
H. Wilson"! Its really got me wondering. . . . . . . . .

Although Google turned up at least two John H. Wilson's with
impecable credentials in molecular biology and the magic of
the genes, didnt notice that either worked for NIH or any of
the other agencies that have pursestrings!

John, are you by any chance one of these two? If so, thanks,
it renews my faith a bit!!!!!

By the way, learning the words to the pledge of allegiance is
about like your memorizing facts for a test. Anybody can
memorize the basic formula, F=MA or the words. For a great
many of us, the complexities of the meaning of the pledge
rival the complexities and implications of "F=MA". Perhaps you
need to look REALLY, really hard at that last last
prepositional clause! You might even be a bit pleased to
recognize that most of us who DO see beyond the words of that
short little pledge, consider even you to be included in that
last "all"! Buuuuuut. . . . . I sorta doubt that you could
appreciate the irony in that.

Snippage. . . . .

>>. . . . . . . . So some can be reasoned with.
>> Most people don't reason, they rationalize.
>
> Yes, and justify.
>

And the justification for insulting people who's religion
happens to differ from your own beliefs is. . . . . . .? 8-)

OBTW, that little "hint. . .hint!" was really cute! Maybe I do
need to see which NIH guy I can invite to come over here and
watch the show. Its shocking to see you civil! 8-)

Regards bk

[John H. Wi]

"Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:B8F7551E.CC1B%rkeeter@earthlink.net...
> in article KDbA8.29150$iJ.26510@nwrddc02.gnilink.net, John
> H. Wilson at
> j.gissw@verizon.net wrote on 5/2/02 9:00 AM:
>
> >
> And its much easier to see the waste in something that you
> dont really understand, particularly if the practitioners
> are a bit standoffish, or
just
> plain elitists
perhaps even that he gets some value, enjoyment(?) out of the
> Discovery Channel show! Who knows, maybe even the next
> election he does
not
> have to vote for a fellow who champions cuts to all things
> not "farm related". 8-)
>

Natural history museums are great for young people. And
the science needn't be too accurate to develop interest -
maybe even a benefit in being wrong on details. People
love to debunk History ng discusses _Braveheart_ at
length, and not so much more accurate movies.

> Education, be it by doctorates or Discovery is not to be
> sneered at when
the
> students go to the ballot box. Call the man a fool, and I
> bet he doesnt vote for (or with) you. ;=))
>

Yep.

> >
> Here in Ma, even that does not work. Everybody is up in
> arms because of
the
> MCAS exams (got to pass to get a HS diploma). People are
> actually yelling and screaming because little Johnny would
> drop out of school rather than study hard enough to pass a
> pretty basic set of tests. After all having
the
> piece of paper (diploma) will mean so much more than
> actually having the knowledge that went behind it! Had
> Harvard gives out only "A's" 8-(.
>

Think England dropped the 11+ too.

> As you've probably guessed, I chose engineering and the
> military. . . For some strange reason, probably closely
> related to my lack of ever having to STUDY paleontology and
> anthropology for coursework its still offering a
lot
> of that same fascinated 15-yr old flavor. Wont make a buck
> off of it but hey everything aint bucks! ;-)

Yes, much of my reading is this, though on a more popular
level, since it is too hard to get to the sources. As you
know, I don't usually post on most threads here (except HN,
and that to point out how little is really known) because
I'm here to pick up the bits of news etc. My information
tends to be ot the popular variety.

>>But a survey of 73
> > creative scientists found that a greater percentage than
> > chance of them
had a
> > background in the more or less minor religions - not
> > sure about the fundamental ones. So some can be reasoned
> > with > >

Another comment. Ministers used to preach up to the sixthly
(i.e. number of points,) Got kids used to listening to a
reasoned argument. Even Lincoln's jokes were different from
Bob Hope's one liners.

>
> Again you are right, dead on! The trick is not to get people
> to abandon their deep set beliefs, merely to TOLERATE your
> own. I dont have to make every Southern Baptist into a
> champion of Darwinism in order to prove to
him
> that all scientists are not arrogant asses. All that
> anonymous "he" needs to really know is that science will
> not, in and of itself, send him as
well
> as his family and friends to a concentration camp for
> believers, which Ive heard championed (thankfully in jest)
> even on this newsgroup! Disagree
with
> a man, even strongly, and very few will hold that arguement
> against you. call a man a fool and he remembers for a very
> long time.
>
> ;-)

Some disagreement between folks on the last paragraph-
some would say, "Yes" and some would say, "Absolutely."

> From counting up those years of schooling and your other
> comments I notice that you just may have gone a bit past the
> basic HS equivalency! 8-) So
Id
> like to thank you for chiming in and encourage you to do so
> more often, perhaps with a signature block to rival some of
> the more shrill, less responsible "champions" of science!
>
> Take care my friend bk
>
Thank you, Cheers John GW

[John H. Wi]

"Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:B8F759E9.CC1D%rkeeter@earthlink.net...
> in article a8r2dukre5qt5conmauhkumm9op6m65fld@4ax.com,
> Philip Deitiker at pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu wrote on 5/2/02
> 11:55 AM:
>
>
> Although Google turned up at least two John H. Wilson's with
> impecable credentials in molecular biology and the magic of
> the genes, didnt notice that either worked for NIH or any of
> the other agencies that have pursestrings!
>
> John, are you by any chance one of these two? If so, thanks,
> it renews my faith a bit!!!!!
>

lNope, you notice I don't post anything on molecular biology.
Don't like to expose my ignorance. OTOH, I argue about HN,
because I know that the only DNA from them is mt, and I also
know that lineages can be lost - probably some in HS have been
lost. Where the evidence doesn't exist, there are no experts.
Little like the doctors of the middle ages. Great surgeons,
but they knew nothing about germs. So anyone who didn't
believe in humors and bleeding was a quack or ignorant. The
argument for different intelligence in HN was that they didn't
adopt the HS technology. Valid, but not so conclusive that
anyone who is unconvinced is not only wrong, but wrongheaded.
In fact, not conclusive at all, IMO - can think of several
reasons for it.

Cheers John GW

[Philip Dei]

On Fri, 03 May 2002 01:15:28 GMT, "John H. Wilson"
<j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:

> Yes, much of my reading is this, though on a more popular
> level, since it is too hard to get to the sources. As you
> know, I don't usually post on most threads here (except
> HN, and that to point out how little is really known)
> because I'm here to pick up the bits of news etc. My
> information tends to be ot the popular variety.

My father had a saying about school which can be just about
applied to anything . . . ."you get out of ____________ what
you put into it". As per this discussion, Phil Nichols saw fit
to create a Journal Club type Newsgroup in groups where papers
could be place on file and discussed 'above' the popular
realm. This is not the same world as in 1996 when I first saw
you plugging post here, there is alot higher quality
information available that I know you are capable of
understanding (even if BK cannot or will not). Gisele has in a
very persistent manner and for whatever reason I can't figure
out, decided to launch a massive study of mtDNA
recombination/Gene conversion and has now, with my help
accumulated over 4000 sequences of various alleles and by
summer may have over 5000, which as it turns out have been
very useful. I threw out the glove to Bob that if he did not
beleive the results of my site or some paper that the
sequences are online, and there was a collection of 2000
alligned, Bob dropped the ball, Gisele did not, she picked up
the ball and with a little coaching has improved that database
by more than a factor of 2. So this person you are arguing
with/agreeing with is a person who will confuscate issues up
to the point in which it means he has to do a little work, and
then its to much for him and he confuscates some other issue
for a while. He contrasts with someone who really cares about
the issues enough to understand them deeply. I don't know that
it takes a Ph.D. to do advanced study, but I do know that it
takes desire.

> >>But a survey of 73
>> > creative scientists found that a greater percentage than
>> > chance of them
>had a
>> > background in the more or less minor religions - not
>> > sure about the fundamental ones. So some can be reasoned
>> > with > >

There is nothing wrong with religion, the problem is not with
religion but orthodification of belief. In science its call
concretized thinking, and people who exhibit and are unable to
get over concretized thinking never go very far. Therefore
fundementalist who chain down their beliefs about reality with
religious orthodoxy limit the extent to which they can think
freely. I am not an athiest. Science is born out of religion,
actually university science was born out of the roman catholic
church. The central tenets of science are born out of
religious philosophy. The gap between religion and science is
that religion remains achored in dogmatized orthodox thinking
and science evolves as fast as it appends knew knowledge [Or
in the case of PA evolves as fast as it can correct past huge
mistakes] Bob here thinks that arrogance of science is why
fundies don't understand enough to vote for mongolian
butterfly studies. It is not scientific arrogance it is
concretized thinking patterns which have been promoted by the
fundementalist and orthodox religious elements in society that
makes it difficult from science to bridge the gap to the
layman. The only exception to this is the Jews, who place a
higher than ordinary focus on education and achieving doctoral
status, because of the requirements of thinking required to
acheive whatever orthodox notion this people have are put
aside for the sake of study, and for this science as been
greatly benefitted. I hate to tell you this Bob, but I and
noone living in "Ivory Towers" can cleanse the orthodox
thinking from the fundies, that search for _________ meaning
has to come from within oneself, I cannot dictate it. But what
I can clearly advocate is that we set a specific sets of
standards for people who go into hard science professions and
medicinal science that a basic requirement is to understand at
some level the 'fundemental' biological processes from the
atom to the earth. If they are incapable because of religion,
because of faulty school boards, because mommy and daddy sent
them to a fundementalist college . . . .then that is their
problem. We are already seeing the screening process going on
here in the U.S. India is now becoming a source of U.S. best
educated students, a thought farm so-to-speak, Is this what we
really want?

>> Again you are right, dead on! The trick is not to get
>> people to abandon their deep set beliefs, merely to
>> TOLERATE your own. I dont have to make every Southern
>> Baptist into a champion of Darwinism in order to prove to
>him
>> that all scientists are not arrogant asses. All that
>> anonymous "he" needs to really know is that science will
>> not, in and of itself, send him as
>well
>> as his family and friends to a concentration camp for
>> believers, which Ive heard championed (thankfully in jest)
>> even on this newsgroup! Disagree
>with
>> a man, even strongly, and very few will hold that arguement
>> against you. call a man a fool and he remembers for a very
>> long time.

Ah, yes but how long will he remember that you killfiled him.
Guess that memory escapes quickly, huh?

>> like to thank you for chiming in and encourage you to do so
>> more often, perhaps with a signature block to rival some of
>> the more shrill, less responsible "champions" of science!

Oh, please . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you knew how to pull
the udder you'de understand why you never get the milk. You
think you are solving a problem but you are compounding it
here. Let us get that strait in your head, you want a bit of
scientific information or you want to research a specific
problem I am more than willing to help you or anyone do that.
But it is clear that what you want to do is pick on the
intelligencia because, for whatever reason, you despise them
you want intelligencia to be the PET FIDO of DEMOCRACY, well
BOB forget it, scientist are part of the obtuse plurality that
keeps this shoestrung society going, we are our own religion!
3/4ths of the time thats why I pick on religion here, because
I want to get under your skin like you try to enflame critical
study. How about I start threads like?

Army Yahoos are Incapable of Handling Science, Totally over
their Heads. Non-acedemic Engineers Have No place try to
Cipher Acedemic Studies. Armed Forces Yahoos Fight For God and
Country, but couldn't define their beleif if their lives
depended on it. Join the Armed Forces and Massage Your Hero
Complex. [apologies to anyone in the armed forces]

All the above are equally off-topic in this group, but as
germane as this thread. You like the feel of it? There are no
ivory towers, asshole, they are a figment in your mind.
2/3rds of science in more akin to muck-farming than anything
else. You create this paper tiger and then take all these
stabs at it. As I told you before, if you don't like
something I say, the fricken data is right there, I'de be
happy to post the accumulated sequence file or you can get
it from Gisele. But I am certain of one thing, you may have
some computer programming experiance and you may know how to
write an algorhythm but when it gets momentarily painful for
you, you will stop run back over here and spread your black
pearls around. Thats were we separate the men from the boys
so to speak, tenacity of cause is the backbone of the true
scientist, and you aint got it. John here will give you a
shoulder to cry on, so be it. And while the rest of humanity
is evolving in thought, in belief trying to pull themselves
forward, you will still be out there throwing poo-poo on the
path seeing if anyone gonna slip up on it 'cause despite
your education, thats your nature. Add something meaningful
in terms of extracts of primary literature or critique of
primary literature or examination of data or go away. I
couldn't give a dead ole hairy rats ass how you vote or how
some beer belching self-proclaimed fundementalist red-nake
feels about science, if this country wants to dig a hole and
bury science it serves these people right for being so
entrenched in their orthodox belief. The history of this
world is that when one people drops the ball, another people
will pick it up, always a succession of better societies,
and we will become the defeated, the unsuccesful. Then you
will have what you wanted, and I will stand outside the wall
and recite the lamentations of Josephus. Philip <pdeitik at
bcm.tmc.edu

[Philip Dei]

On Fri, 03 May 2002 14:22:56 GMT, "John H. Wilson"
<j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:

> > Although Google turned up at least two John H. Wilson's
> > with impecable
>> credentials in molecular biology and the magic of the
>> genes, didnt notice that either worked for NIH or any of
>> the other agencies that have pursestrings!
>>
>> John, are you by any chance one of these two? If so,
>> thanks, it renews my faith a bit!!!!!

John Wilson works here in Baylor, my Dept. Wrote a few books
on Mol Bio.

>lNope, you notice I don't post anything on molecular
>biology. Don't like to expose my ignorance. OTOH, I argue
>about HN, because I know that the only DNA from them is mt,
>and I also know that lineages can be lost - probably some in
>HS have been lost. Where the evidence doesn't exist, there
>are no experts.

Here we go again. Trying to beat the dead horse again. Do you
want to know where the most (longest) length missing
connectors are:

A> Europe
B> Asia
C> Americas
D> Australia
E> Africa.

[Hint-Hint of the >4000 sequence I now have in my data base
only a few hundred come from africa, where the population is
approaching 1 billion and has the deepest diversity. With the
exception of segment of the North asia population we can trace
exoafrican ancestry of the vast majority of alleles of lHV1
mutation by mutation back to africa, with persistent ancestral
alleles as intermediates, this step wise regression fails the
moment you cross the sahara.] Also within autosomal loci that
have divergences of more than 500 ky, all except 1 loci show
that diversity stems out of africa (as bleedthrough variation
or post constictive interbreeding). The remaining loci suffers
from undersampling in africa.

> Little like the doctors of the middle ages. Great
> surgeons, but they knew nothing about germs. So anyone
> who didn't believe in humors and bleeding was a quack or
> ignorant.

You can uncover your eyes and grab the handlebars of your
little bicycle, now, John, that Spanish Dagger is get
awful close.

> The argument for different intelligence in HN was that
> they didn't adopt the HS technology. Valid, but not so
> conclusive that anyone who is unconvinced is not only
> wrong, but wrongheaded. In fact, not conclusive at all,
> IMO - can think of several reasons for it.

See: Neanderthal 4954.pdf and 4955.pdf in Files @
Group:PaleoAnthro @ Yahoo

You can make the point that the assumptions of what data is
important what data is not important can be argued, but the
only thing that is wrongheaded is for a person to state that
we should ignore all culture/technology differences between HS
and HN sites. Its almost like saying the primatologist are
stupid for looking at the 'pedality' differences between
bonobos and chimpanzees. Science is about gathering data and
interpreting it not burying our heads in the sand because we
don't like the interpretation. Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Bob Keeter]

Actually I do have to concede several points to you. I have
not been able to put the desired (and necessary effort) into
studying your "revelations"! Got several higher priorities,
starting with a pair of teenagers, a steady job (amazing that
even ditch digging can be a steady job! 8-) ), and a major
drain on spare time called Johns Hopkins Grad school. Luckily,
I must be benefitting from some sort of intellectual "Equal
Opportunity for Idiots" deal, but my pathetic academic
aptitude, piddling intelect, and all round stinky character is
not held too badly against me. I will make do I guess. So,
yep, you have NOT been getting the attention you so richly
deserve and it IS my fault! My apologies! 8-)

On the other hand, I do appreciate your help! And you know,
this is what I think deep down I like about you, Philip ole
boy. You are absolutely "reliable", and as as the poster boy
for the affliction that reliability is greatly appreciated.
Matter of fact, you preset the issue much clearer, and with
much sharper contrast, than I ever could. I could never paint
that "Ivory Tower" issue as colorfully or as credibly as you
manage in your "laboratory demonstration"! You know, for
simple minded people like me, a non-abstract, hands-on
demonstration is much more effective as a learning tool, and
amazingly it even can be a very powerful teaching tool for the
more intellectual amongst us. The question (and I wont even
ask for a show of hands!) that at least some must ask is, do
they want to join you in that wonderously self-gratifying
Ivory Tower, or slide down the scaling ropes and join the rest
of humanity

Anyway, as the marginally literate, ill educated, bad
mannered, etc., etc., etc., and all-round sick sociopath that
I am, I could never hope to present my arguement in such
clear terms, and couch the proposition in such emotionlessly
clear logic and incontrovertible demonstration of fact! 8-)
Thank you!

Now you just keep on keeping on! I do appreciate it.

Regards bk

in article 3eb5a02b.820502@netnews.worldnet.att.net, Philip
Deitiker at pdeitik@worldnet.att.net wrote on 5/4/02 1:12 AM:

> On Fri, 03 May 2002 01:15:28 GMT, "John H. Wilson"
> <j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> Yes, much of my reading is this, though on a more popular
>> level, since it is too hard to get to the sources. As you
>> know, I don't usually post on most threads here (except HN,
>> and that to point out how little is really known) because
>> I'm here to pick up the bits of news etc. My information
>> tends to be ot the popular variety.
>
> My father had a saying about school which can be just about
> applied to anything . . . ."you get out of ____________ what
> you put into it". As per this discussion, Phil Nichols saw
> fit to create a Journal Club type Newsgroup in groups where
> papers could be place on file and discussed 'above' the
> popular realm. This is not the same world as in 1996 when I
> first saw you plugging post here, there is alot higher
> quality information available that I know you are capable of
> understanding (even if BK cannot or will not). Gisele has in
> a very persistent manner and for whatever reason I can't
> figure out, decided to launch a massive study of mtDNA
> recombination/Gene conversion and has now, with my help
> accumulated over 4000 sequences of various alleles and by
> summer may have over 5000, which as it turns out have been
> very useful. I threw out the glove to Bob that if he did not
> beleive the results of my site or some paper that the
> sequences are online, and there was a collection of 2000
> alligned, Bob dropped the ball, Gisele did not, she picked
> up the ball and with a little coaching has improved that
> database by more than a factor of 2. So this person you are
> arguing with/agreeing with is a person who will confuscate
> issues up to the point in which it means he has to do a
> little work, and then its to much for him and he confuscates
> some other issue for a while. He contrasts with someone who
> really cares about the issues enough to understand them
> deeply. I don't know that it takes a Ph.D. to do advanced
> study, but I do know that it takes desire.
>
>>>> But a survey of 73 creative scientists found that a
>>>> greater percentage than chance of them
>> had a
>>>> background in the more or less minor religions - not
>>>> sure about the fundamental ones. So some can be reasoned
>>>> with > >
>
> There is nothing wrong with religion, the problem is not
> with religion but orthodification of belief. In science its
> call concretized thinking, and people who exhibit and are
> unable to get over concretized thinking never go very far.
> Therefore fundementalist who chain down their beliefs about
> reality with religious orthodoxy limit the extent to which
> they can think freely. I am not an athiest. Science is born
> out of religion, actually university science was born out of
> the roman catholic church. The central tenets of science are
> born out of religious philosophy. The gap between religion
> and science is that religion remains achored in dogmatized
> orthodox thinking and science evolves as fast as it appends
> knew knowledge [Or in the case of PA evolves as fast as it
> can correct past huge mistakes] Bob here thinks that
> arrogance of science is why fundies don't understand enough
> to vote for mongolian butterfly studies. It is not
> scientific arrogance it is concretized thinking patterns
> which have been promoted by the fundementalist and orthodox
> religious elements in society that makes it difficult from
> science to bridge the gap to the layman. The only exception
> to this is the Jews, who place a higher than ordinary focus
> on education and achieving doctoral status, because of the
> requirements of thinking required to acheive whatever
> orthodox notion this people have are put aside for the sake
> of study, and for this science as been greatly benefitted. I
> hate to tell you this Bob, but I and noone living in "Ivory
> Towers" can cleanse the orthodox thinking from the fundies,
> that search for _________ meaning has to come from within
> oneself, I cannot dictate it. But what I can clearly
> advocate is that we set a specific sets of standards for
> people who go into hard science professions and medicinal
> science that a basic requirement is to understand at some
> level the 'fundemental' biological processes from the atom
> to the earth. If they are incapable because of religion,
> because of faulty school boards, because mommy and daddy
> sent them to a fundementalist college . . . .then that is
> their problem. We are already seeing the screening process
> going on here in the U.S. India is now becoming a source of
> U.S. best educated students, a thought farm so-to-speak, Is
> this what we really want?
>
>>> Again you are right, dead on! The trick is not to get
>>> people to abandon their deep set beliefs, merely to
>>> TOLERATE your own. I dont have to make every Southern
>>> Baptist into a champion of Darwinism in order to prove to
>> him
>>> that all scientists are not arrogant asses. All that
>>> anonymous "he" needs to really know is that science will
>>> not, in and of itself, send him as
>> well
>>> as his family and friends to a concentration camp for
>>> believers, which Ive heard championed (thankfully in jest)
>>> even on this newsgroup! Disagree
>> with
>>> a man, even strongly, and very few will hold that
>>> arguement against you. call a man a fool and he remembers
>>> for a very long time.
>
> Ah, yes but how long will he remember that you killfiled
> him. Guess that memory escapes quickly, huh?
>
>>> like to thank you for chiming in and encourage you to do
>>> so more often, perhaps with a signature block to rival
>>> some of the more shrill, less responsible "champions" of
>>> science!
>
> Oh, please . . . . . . . . . . . . . If you knew how to
> pull the udder you'de understand why you never get the
> milk. You think you are solving a problem but you are
> compounding it here. Let us get that strait in your head,
> you want a bit of scientific information or you want to
> research a specific problem I am more than willing to help
> you or anyone do that. But it is clear that what you want
> to do is pick on the intelligencia because, for whatever
> reason, you despise them you want intelligencia to be the
> PET FIDO of DEMOCRACY, well BOB forget it, scientist are
> part of the obtuse plurality that keeps this shoestrung
> society going, we are our own religion! 3/4ths of the time
> thats why I pick on religion here, because I want to get
> under your skin like you try to enflame critical study. How
> about I start threads like?
>
> Army Yahoos are Incapable of Handling Science, Totally over
> their Heads. Non-acedemic Engineers Have No place try to
> Cipher Acedemic Studies. Armed Forces Yahoos Fight For God
> and Country, but couldn't define their beleif if their lives
> depended on it. Join the Armed Forces and Massage Your Hero
> Complex. [apologies to anyone in the armed forces]
>
> All the above are equally off-topic in this group, but as
> germane as this thread. You like the feel of it? There are
> no ivory towers, asshole, they are a figment in your mind.
> 2/3rds of science in more akin to muck-farming than anything
> else. You create this paper tiger and then take all these
> stabs at it. As I told you before, if you don't like
> something I say, the fricken data is right there, I'de be
> happy to post the accumulated sequence file or you can get
> it from Gisele. But I am certain of one thing, you may
> have some computer programming experiance and you may know
> how to write an algorhythm but when it gets momentarily
> painful for you, you will stop run back over here and
> spread your black pearls around. Thats were we separate
> the men from the boys so to speak, tenacity of cause is
> the backbone of the true scientist, and you aint got it.
> John here will give you a shoulder to cry on, so be it.
> And while the rest of humanity is evolving in thought, in
> belief trying to pull themselves forward, you will still
> be out there throwing poo-poo on the path seeing if anyone
> gonna slip up on it 'cause despite your education, thats
> your nature. Add something meaningful in terms of extracts
> of primary literature or critique of primary literature or
> examination of data or go away. I couldn't give a dead ole
> hairy rats ass how you vote or how some beer belching
> self-proclaimed fundementalist red-nake feels about
> science, if this country wants to dig a hole and bury
> science it serves these people right for being so
> entrenched in their orthodox belief. The history of this
> world is that when one people drops the ball, another
> people will pick it up, always a succession of better
> societies, and we will become the defeated, the
> unsuccesful. Then you will have what you wanted, and I
> will stand outside the wall and recite the lamentations of
> Josephus. Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[Mb]

Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

[lot of selfrightous babble]

> There are no ivory towers, asshole,

ah, guess you believe that the field is prepared now for
becoming become insulting?

> But I am certain of one thing, you may have some computer
> programming experiance and you may know how to write an
> algorhythm .....

Guess that means to know how to use MS Word as a "valuable"
tool of bioinformatics =;-)

> Add something meaningful in terms of extracts of primary
> literature or critique of primary literature or
> examination of data or go away.

Oh yes, you king of primary content =8-DDD

Michael

[Gisele Hor]

On Fri, 03 May 2002 10:14:48 -0500, Philip Deitiker
<pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:

[...]
>Do you want to know where the most (longest) length missing
>connectors are:
>
>A> Europe
>B> Asia
>C> Americas
>D> Australia
>E> Africa.
>
>[Hint-Hint of the >4000 sequence I now have in my data base
>only a few hundred come from africa, where the population is
>approaching 1 billion and has the deepest diversity. With the
>exception of segment of the North asia population we can
>trace exoafrican ancestry of the vast majority of alleles of
>lHV1 mutation by mutation back to africa, with persistent
>ancestral alleles as intermediates, this step wise regression
>fails the moment you cross the sahara.]

In both the coding region and hypervariable regions, there is
a huge gap between the sequences of sub-saharans and northern
Africans (or, more accurately, a deep divide between sequences
labelled as L1/L2 and
L3). Is this what you are referring to? If so, do you feel
that this is also due to inadequate sampling? (I'm not
inclined to think so but I'm interested in your views on
the subject).

When you write "back to Africa", which group (L1/L2 or L3) are
you referring to?

Gisele

[Mb]

Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:

>
> >...... I argue about HN, because I know that the only DNA
> >from them is mt, and I also know that lineages can be lost
> >- probably some in HS have been lost....
>
> Here we go again...

Indeed.. =8-D

> Trying to beat the dead horse again.

Well, I would rather say you´re trying to erect a strawman
again, because....

> Do you want to know where the most (longest) length missing
> connectors are....
>
> .... >4000 sequence I now have in my data base only a few
> hundred come from africa, where the population is
> approaching 1 billion and has the deepest diversity. With
> the exception of segment of the North asia population we can
> trace exoafrican ancestry... and so on

..this addresses anything but J.W's comment, it´s the
usual ballyhoo.

The point was that mitochondrial lineages can be lost.
Basically all analytical investigations of mtDNA are based on
coalescence theory. Random *loss* and random fixation of
alleles is it´s genuine subject.

Coalescence theory hence can say - based on some 6000 samples
- that the various haplotypes observed today can be traced
back to a single lineage about 150ky+. But it does not and it
can not say that at any point of time within this range the
species HSS was characterized by just this lineage and its
descendants. Likely even the stem population in which mtEve
arose might have harbored more than one haplotype.

E.G. therefore the results of Thornes work at LM3 (although
I'd like to see this repeated) which revealed such an
extinct lineage likely was a big surprise only for
those who took the "mtDNA-Eve" literally, probably
inclusive of you.

And that´s why mtDNA analysis aren't sufficient to exclude an
admixture of non-african archaics.

And here we go to the foggy part:

> Also within autosomal loci that have divergences of more
> than 500 ky, all except 1 loci show that diversity stems out
> of africa (as bleedthrough variation or post constictive
> interbreeding). The remaining loci suffers from
> undersampling in africa.
>
and from a separate message you labeled "PDHA1"

> ...I should remind everyone that the overwhelming majorite
> of 'unfixed' genes demonstrate an african origin,
> suggesting bleed through or post constriction african
> contribution the only exception of genes with deep
> diversity is the PDHA1 gene.."

Well so, I guess you´re talking about PDHA1.

And again I´m amazed how heroical you misrepresent the meaning
of a paper and how little you obviously know about the work of
it's author in general. J. Hey has published a number of
interesting articles in the field molecular evolution, and
hence a guy like you who sticks that hard on the primary
literature ;-> should know the general line somebody is
following.

For anybody who´d like to check out the PNAS paper it is this
one:

Eugene E. Harris and Jody Hey X chromosome evidence for
ancient human histories Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA (1999)
96, 3320-3324

some more stuff for those who are interested in MolEvol from
th esame author:

Eugene E. Harris, Jody Hey Human Demography in the
Pleistocene: Do Mitochondrial and Nuclear Genes Tell the
Same Story? Evolutionary Anthropology (1999) 8, 81-86

Jody Hey Mitochondrial and Nuclear Genes Present
Conflicting Portraits of Human Origins Mol. Biol. Evol.
(1997) 14(2), 166-172

However,

1) this paper is not intended to "show that [PDHA1] diversity
stems [from] out[side] of africa", instead it reveals that
the PDHA1 gene tree is as old as 1.8 million years, is
separated into two main branches whereby one consists
exclusively of african haplotypes and the other of
non-african + one african haplotype and thus is going to
demonstrate that ancient populations had been structurized
into sub-populations.

2)PDAH1 is not "the only exception of genes with deep
diversity". E.G. beta-globin, ZFX, LPL come into my mind.

3)although, considering a world population of some 6 billion
people, any genetic analysis might "suffer from under
sampling", the observed distribution patterns are unlikely
to be due to chance. Anybody should keep in mind that the
contribution of Neanderthals to mtDNA of modern humans is
excluded based on three samples.

Bottom line,

this paper don´t question an african origin of modern human,
it question the model of die-hard ooA proponents, who are
maintaining that modern humans are descending from a single,
isolated population of some thousand individuals located
somewhere in africa, a conclusion which was basically fueled
by mtDNA analysis. Instead it maintains - as mentioned in 1) -
that the ancestrial population was divided into
sub-populations which were geographical separated. Since
haplotype distribution pattern was as described in 1) africa
was considered as the most parsimonious location of the origin
of the sequences.

So fare for the facts.

I´m not going to waste my time in order to counter whatever
might be behind your superficial blurbs, so just some remarks

In a recent publication in Nature...

Berhane Asfaw ..... Tim D. White Remains of Homo
erectus from Bouri, Middle Awash, Ethiopia Nature 2002
(416), 317-320

...T. White presented the investigation of a 1my H.erectus
calvaria and concluded that early "African and Eurasian fossil
hominids represent demes of a widespread paleospecies", which
btw isn´t just his personal opinion. Given that they are
correct and that the oldest eurasian hominids are about 800ky
older this might indicate that the gene flow between the
continents was sufficient to prevent the erection of a formal
speciation barrier.

Additionally it should be noted that modern H.S.S. as well as
transitional forms aged between 100 and 200 kya have been
found from South Africa to Morocco.

The migration coefficient Nm necessary to keep genetic
homogeneity is estimated to be 1, i.e one emigrant per
generation is sufficient to prevent a speciation from happen.
For modern humans Nm has been estimated to be about 2, for
other species values as far as 0,2 have been observed.

All this should be enough data to support at least the gene
flow between african sub populations, which could give eve´s
single population a hard stance.

>
> See: Neanderthal 4954.pdf and 4955.pdf in Files @
> Group:PaleoAnthro @ Yahoo
>

Wow, guess that´s what one would call a proper reference in
the true scientific manner =;-D

> Science is about gathering data and interpreting it not
> burying our heads in the sand because we don't like the
> interpretation.

an important advise, thanks =8-DD

Michael

[Ejudy]

Bob Keeter wrote:

>..... and a major drain on spare time called Johns Hopkins
>Grad school.

And none too soon! That's probably one of the best cures out
there for a severe case of the debilitating "ivory tower
envy" syndrome.

Good for you! (seriously!) Maybe you'll stop the stupid
potshotting when you start getting cured. Oops!!

ejudy ;-)

"If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will
save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not
have within you [will] kill you." Jesus

[Philip Dei]

On Sat, 4 May 2002 21:36:57 +0200,
musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de (mb) wrote:

>Guess that means to know how to use MS Word as a "valuable"
>tool of bioinformatics =;-)

Actually wordpad was what the 2000 seq database was published
at and modified in wordpad. The Visual Basic Program uses
that as the information database. Word is only used to make
the results of the sinffer program visually appealing to the
audiance, like Gisele, or for example, Gisele want me to see
something she found, to me. I also use paintbrush to make
clads. I suppose I could scribble them on the back of toilet
paper, put them in coke bottles and throw them into the
Bayou, so that you guys might find the on a shore near you.
Use the media in which most people have access to (Word,
Notepad, WordPad, bmp files or jpeg) and you will go far in
this world. Redicule people for using such media, and the
:^DDDs are on you.

Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[Ejudy]

Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:

>
>Per exemplar, bob, as to why you would have difficulty in
>advanced study.
>

In all seriousness Phil, i don't think you are accurate on
this point simply because i have known some ace #1 primo
deluxe model, fat on awards and honors and great
accomplishment, PhD's who are actually changing the world by
a different form of resiliency than what you are talking
about. There are all kinds, IOW. Bob here wouldn't do well in
your world and you wouldn't do well in his but there are
almost infinite varieties of folks to fit a great number of
slots. He'll find a teacher who works with his personality
and he'll do great.

Probably in the super heavy metal rockband structure of TMC he
might not do like you in the subjects you are good in. That's
why we are amazed cuz its a tough place and you have to be
sharp like a razor.

But there are alot of different styles and slots. Alot of the
primatologists that i was aquainted with actually did well if
they could work alone in the field or if they could get so
myopically obsessed over one single tiny footbone in some long
extinct primate that they wouldn't even have to deal with any
other specialists because there are no competators in their
field. There are alone in that way. And they can make good
contributions. One lady who started as a group leader at a
science camp i used to call home had no great background and
in her thirties went back to grad school and specialized in in
anthropology merged with midwifery and now is in scientific
american with articles on the Evolution of Human Birth. I
would say phil would probably scare the ____ out of the ladies
he would have had to study to get where she is now. PLus Phil
you probably couldn't stomach seeing all the placental
deliveries either. But her work is great. She let me put some
illustrations in one of her textbooks too....;-) So i just had
to give a counter argument here. :-)

I am not here commenting on the fundies debate as i am totally
insulted by the rightwing coalitions who sneak in from every
side and try to screw up the time element such that chaos
results in probably the most costly stupid things i can
imagine. Costly in greater terms than money. Costly in wasted
extinctions, wasted childrens educations, wasted resources of
so many kinds....destroyed pieces of the puzzle we are trying
to solve. I find that exceedingly offensive and dangerous for
all of our futures. If bob is a pain on that subject, which he
might not be if nurtured by a great teacher, well then he can
just go share the fundies benchseat in purgatory for eternity.
Go sit next to James Watt.

If this statement: "If you are not looking for hard evidence
of tens or hundreds or thousands of species disappearing
each year, then you aren't going to find it." (-Kirk O.
Winemiller Texas A&M) means nothing to you then you are
totally full of it as that is getting pretty darn close to
hard and painful reality.

If you choose not to look then you will not see. Its an act of
maturity to face the world and act responsibly toward more
than just our tight little petty insignificant lives. But
there is a trick to educate educators on how to get folks
beyond this developmental milestone. Making them all mushy and
faint at heart just delays the solutions as the problems
increase exponentially (denial, head in sand etc..).

I think that's what the jist of phil's statement might be...
correct me if i am wrong. That's what education in science
must include to be real. All the laurals mean nothing compared
to that. And that's what's missing from Bob's posts when he
wastes the time on arguing the wrong priority.

ejudy

[Philip Dei]

On Fri, 03 May 2002 17:56:01 GMT, g-horvat@shaw.ca (Gisele
Horvat) wrote:

>On Fri, 03 May 2002 10:14:48 -0500, Philip Deitiker
><pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:
>
>[...]
>>Do you want to know where the most (longest) length missing
>>connectors are:
>>
>>A> Europe
>>B> Asia
>>C> Americas
>>D> Australia
>>E> Africa.
>>
>>[Hint-Hint of the >4000 sequence I now have in my data base
>>only a few hundred come from africa, where the population is
>>approaching 1 billion and has the deepest diversity. With
>>the exception of segment of the North asia population we can
>>trace exoafrican ancestry of the vast majority of alleles of
>>lHV1 mutation by mutation back to africa, with persistent
>>ancestral alleles as intermediates, this step wise
>>regression fails the moment you cross the sahara.]
>
>In both the coding region and hypervariable regions, there is
>a huge gap between the sequences of sub-saharans and northern
>Africans (or, more accurately, a deep divide between
>sequences labelled as L1/L2 and
>L3). Is this what you are referring to? If so, do you feel
> that this is also due to inadequate sampling? (I'm not
> inclined to think so but I'm interested in your views on
> the subject).

I know you know the answer to this Gisele, its the guys who
think 'all things being held equal' they know anything about
mtDNA progression. And discount it without any thing more than
a transient glimpse.

Part of this is due to sampling, its obvious from what we
obtained from the 2000 and then the sequences from what you
collected in NE, and then the brute force appendations that we
made in NE asia that the african population will not be fairly
represented until thousands of mtDNA alleles are added, with
hundreds more required to bridge the missing regions.

Part of it is also do to the assymetric expansion that I have
been talking about which progressed North and East of the
Congo. It is obvious that the links from the Congo to this may
be swamped by displacements in africa and because the total
size of africa (<1 billion individuals/depth of the african
population (>250 million years) is less than the total size of
the exoafrican population
>5 billion/depth of that diversity (<150 million
years) that more sequence information south of the sahara is
going to be lost from the point of major alleles than in
eurasia. We have therefore a compound problem with the study
of african mtDNA. We have (lower than required sampling) x
(expectedly higher exclusion frequencies of major ancestral
alleles due to the age and size of population). IOW both
explanations are true.

Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Bob Keeter]

in article 46e43451.0205041236.19b5a914@posting.google.com,
ejudy at ejudy@my-deja.com wrote on 5/4/02 3:36 PM:

> Bob Keeter wrote:
>
>> ..... and a major drain on spare time called Johns Hopkins
>> Grad school.
>>
> And none too soon! That's probably one of the best cures out
> there for a severe case of the debilitating "ivory tower
> envy" syndrome.
>
> Good for you! (seriously!) Maybe you'll stop the stupid
> potshotting when you start getting cured. Oops!!
>
>
> ejudy ;-)
>

I THOUGHT that the concept was that I would leave you alone
and you would do me the same favor. Is this the "payback"
for the unconciousable sin of pointing you towards the NOAA
Paleoclimatology center? I did so with no comment
whatsoever, and only because it had an answer to your
question. I was not forming a question here and I certainly
was not aiming it at you.

By the way, I do happen to agree with you that TRUE education
is in fact a cure for the ivory tower syndrome and not a
cause. At least in my humble, ignorant, unsophisticated and
uncultured opinion, EDUCATED people, whatever their field,
should recognize the folly of self-serving egotism of ivory
tower climbing.

Perhaps the truely educated people should even try to use
their abilities and knowledge for the betterment of people
instead of simply trying to strut around like a lofty,
detached, belligerent, and ultimately table-bound bantam
rooster. I trust that if ever I manage to gain some credible
insights and such that I do not use any newfound knowledge to
become that self-important "banty rooster" up in an Ivory
Tower of his own construction!

Now, if you note, this thread was NOT aimed in your
direction. Had nothing to do with you whatsoever until you
traipsed in. I ask, ever so kindly, that you abide by your
own request and I quote,

"Again i will ask to be left out of your vendetta agenda from
now on. I will avoid you, too ok? "

Unless there are several Ejudy's out there, Google does not
lie. So, kindly stay out of my "vendetta agenda", field of
fire, or whatever it actually is. You are NOT my enemy, quit
trying so terribly hard to make it so.

Regards bk

[Philip Dei]

On 4 May 2002 13:36:38 -0700, ejudy@my-deja.com (ejudy) wrote:

>"If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will
>save you. If you do not have that within you, what you do not
>have within you [will] kill you."

Does that mean he had Nails within him, cause we all gonna die
someday. Might as well be in a downspiraling, engines on fire,
flamefest.

Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[John H. Wi]

"mb" <musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in message
news:1fbnjvm.f9zhqg1gvt9o4N%musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de...
> Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:
>
> Coalescence theory hence can say - based on some 6000
> samples - that the various haplotypes observed today can be
> traced back to a single lineage about 150ky+. But it does
> not and it can not say that at any point of time within this
> range the species HSS was characterized by just this lineage
> and its descendants. Likely even the stem population in
> which mtEve arose might have harbored more than one
> haplotype.
>
> E.G. therefore the results of Thornes work at LM3 (although
> I'd like to see this repeated) which revealed such an
> extinct lineage likely was a big surprise only for
> those who took the "mtDNA-Eve" literally, probably
> inclusive of you.
> > And that´s why mtDNA analysis aren't sufficient to
> > exclude an admixture
> of non-african archaics.

Breaking my rule of not posting one this sort of thing.
Above is clear. Thanks.

(snip some references - doubt if these are in the local
little college, but will look.)

>
> Bottom line,
>
> this paper don´t question an african origin of modern human,
> it question the model of die-hard ooA proponents, who are
> maintaining that modern humans are descending from a single,
> isolated population of some thousand individuals located
> somewhere in africa, a conclusion which was basically fueled
> by mtDNA analysis. Instead it maintains - as mentioned in 1)
> - that the ancestrial population was divided into
> sub-populations which were geographical separated. Since
> haplotype distribution pattern was as described in 1) africa
> was considered as the most parsimonious location of the
> origin of the sequences.
>
> So fare for the facts.
>
> In a recent publication in Nature...(snip)
>

which I think I can get.

>
>
> All this should be enough data to support at least the gene
> flow between african sub populations, which could give
> eve´s single population a hard stance.
>
And this is what is not clear. Stance? Any further
elaboration possible?

Regards
John GW

[Ejudy]

Bob wrote :

>... Is this the "payback" for the unconciousable sin of
>pointing you towards the NOAA Paleoclimatology center? I did
>so with no comment whatsoever, and only because it had an
>answer to your question.

For the record, only he knows his own conscience.

ejudy

If one finds a ~big enough~ justification does it make ~less
than~ honorable means acceptable?

[Ejudy]

pdeitik@worldnet.att.net (Philip Deitiker) wrote in article
<3eba97a6.1270367@netnews.worldnet.att.net> :
>On Mon, 06 May 2002 22:51:00 GMT, Bob Keeter
><rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
>>How may times do you think that the medical researchers and
>>others who were seeking the passage of this bill told the
>>Honorable Senator from Utah that his religion was a farce
>>and that he was a fool for believing in it?
>
>Think about it you come from a state with a developing
>medical center. The mormons are not the same crack-ball
>fundies as the southern babtist, they may ban human cloning
>in their own states, walla- that kind of research is stopped.
>YOu attract those stem cell guys to your neck of the woods.
>You get patients from all over the world to come, your
>medical center grows, you make money.
>
> In 1940s Baylor University Medical (as in bible thumping
> Baylor, Home of the "nations oldest virgins" and highest
> freshman pregnancy rate), moved from its home in Dallas to
> a subdivided cattle ranch along Braes Bayou in houston. It
> was associated with Methodist Hospital. In the 1960s a guy
> by the name of Micheal DeBakey started doing heart surgery.
> Since that time the medical center has grown in size from 5
> to 20% per year to its current size of 200 buildings and
> 70,000 employees, students and volunteers (average salary
> is 45,000/year) supported by about 3 times as many dollars.
> Medical Center is largest in the world. Medical center is
> now know as the '2nd Downtown'. Were so important we are
> going to get our own train, and Houstonians HATE trains.
> Now if you go back to 1960, heart surgery was pretty
> controversial stuff, take body parts out of pigs and other
> people and putting them into humans was considered
> sacrilidge to many people. But here down in the religious,
> bible thumping tip of the bible belt, Houston, some folks
> thought this was our opportunity to be in the spot-light.
> Houston itself didn't exist until about 1880 and population
> was pretty dinky until the advent of airconditioning. So
> ole baylor became independent of Baylor College, Got a
> Jewish institute, built several buildings, added 5 or 6
> departments, took down the Barbers pole and started
> pretending to be a real medical school, and of course if
> you were good you could follow debakey into the operating
> room. That was 1970. today Baylor college is a huge
> corperation, with a high ________ board of trustees, who
> bring in high $ consultants trained at Harvard business
> school (like Jeff Skilling of Enron fame) to tell us how we
> might actually screw ourselves up faster than we might have
> otherwise screwed ourselves up. Mucho Buckos. The target
> grant $ per square foot of space is $400/sq ft/year
> ($35/month compares with rental space around the medcenter
> at $2/month per square foot but the pay the gas and
> electric). Can you imagine what the target rate for space
> was in 1945? They would have paid you to just come and
> occupy the space and pretend to teach all 5 students who
> would otherwise be muck farming the cattle as a means of
> getting though med school. You would be paid but you would
> have to recruit your patients to get paid. And of course
> you could probably get a sympathy grant from the
> government.
>
>Medical Science is Big business, The med center attraction is
>worth all the sports teams and fine arts centers combined.
>Your a center, you got researchers who think they got a whole
>radical new feild of surgery that will open up the med center
>in your state . . . . . .
>
etc....etc....etc...etc....

This must be Phil's way of trying to entice Bob to move down
and do his graduate school in Houston. ;-))) That's a nice
bOnObO solution.
Dr. Ruth would say you guys have worked your disagreements out
rather nicely.

Cheers! ejudy

OoPs! Wrong newsgroup? What? You are booting me out?
hehehe.....:^D

[Ejudy]

Bob Keeter wrote:
>Phil wrote:

>> In 1940s Baylor University Medical (as in bible thumping
>> Baylor, Home of the "nations oldest virgins" and highest
>> freshman pregnancy rate),

>... Why are you dodging the basic question as posed and
>offering up a story about the mating habits of the Baylor
>coed class and heart surgery?
>

EUREKA! I think i found the answer! Apparently he is trying to
tell you that the freshmen class consists of elderly females
perhaps nestled between the ages of 40 and 45 years of age and
entirely insistant upon finding that "number one" to "make it
so" and i think he was cluing you in on this to get you a bit
more motivated as he seems to read your interests like a book.

Anyway, good luck! Thats enough deciphering for today i would
say. Whew!

ejudy

[Ejudy]

ejudy@my-deja.com (ejudy) wrote in article
<46e43451.0205071523.7c041661@posting.google.com> :
>Bob Keeter wrote:
>>Phil wrote:
>
>>>..... Home of the "nations oldest virgins" and highest
>>>freshman pregnancy rate),
>
>
>>... Why are you dodging the basic question as posed and
>>offering up a story about the mating habits of the Baylor
>>coed class and heart surgery?
>>

>Apparently he is trying to tell you that the freshmen class
>consists of elderly females perhaps nestled between the ages
>of 40 and 45 years of age and entirely insistant upon finding
>that "number one" to "make it so" and i think he was cluing
>you in on this to get you a bit more motivated....

.....and the heart surgery specialists are for safety &
reassurance! You are no spring chicken right?

I think this may in fact be a test to see if you can stay
glued to the prime directive.... a test to see what kind of
grad student you would make, "would he chase the elderly
freshman's skirts or keep his nose in the books," IOW.

Man-oh-man, i am good at this de-encryption stuff, eh? Just
pose the questions and i'll find the answers!

ejudy

[Bob Keeter]

in article 46e43451.0205081144.12361f2b@posting.google.com,
ejudy at ejudy@my-deja.com wrote on 5/8/02 2:44 PM:

> Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:
>
>
>>
>> Per exemplar, bob, as to why you would have difficulty in
>> advanced study.
>>
>
> In all seriousness Phil, i don't think you are accurate on
> this point simply because i have known some ace #1 primo
> deluxe model, fat on awards and honors and great
> accomplishment, PhD's who are actually changing the world
> by a different form of resiliency than what you are
> talking about.

Is it "resiliency" to treat one's fellow man like pond scum
because he does not bow to "truths" brought down from the
proverbial mountain of personal knowledge? Check as I may I
can not find a single definition for "resiliency" that comes
close! And as for the the "ace #1, primo deluxe model, fat on
awards and honors and great accomplishment, PhDs" that you
know, how many of them change the world by spewing invective
and hate at whole classes of people because of religion or
simply because they happen to disagree on some point or
another? How many, Philip excluded of course.

> . . . . . . . . If bob is a pain on that subject, which he
> might not be if nurtured by a great teacher, well then he
> can just go share the fundies benchseat in purgatory for
> eternity. Go sit next to James Watt.

But you see the real PROBLEM is that I dont share that seat.
Matter of fact I feel the exactly same revulsion for the
bigotry and insulting self-congratulating egotism on that side
of the camp as well. Some of the "fundies" as you would call
them, are just as arrogant, just as bigoted, just as
egotistical as Philip at his worst! I think that the problem
is that I CAN separate myself from the pathetically
self-serving religious fanatics because Im simply not very
religious myself. I cant separate myself from science and I
take great offense when someone insist on perpetrating the
image of a scientist way up in that "Ivory Tower" way above
and totally oblivious of the realities of the human world. I
get all pumped up not because Im a religous fanatic, but
because someone, who in a certain sense I might even consider
"family", would insist on crapping right in the middle of my
living room floor and acting as if they are proud of the
accomplishment. And I am ashamed for all of the decent,
considerate and well-meaning scientists that bear the stain.

Thats all. And Mr Watt and a few others can keep their seats
on that particular pew. I wont be needing them quite yet.

snippage. . . .

> I think that's what the jist of phil's statement might be...
> correct me if i am wrong. That's what education in science
> must include to be real. All the laurals mean nothing
> compared to that. And that's what's missing from Bob's posts
> when he wastes the time on arguing the wrong priority.
>
>

And what IS the right priority? Is it better to campaign for
the saving of wildlife preserves or to spend the time
screeching about what a unprincipled fool Orrin Hatch might
be? Is it better to contribute time, money and votes to
politicians that agree with your views, all of which by the
way I think perhaps I do not, or spewing invective against
some anonymous churchgoer in Mississippi who throws $5 into
the till each Sunday? To mangle a bit of a quote, does not the
Hippocratic Oath have something about "at least do no harm" in
there some where? Could it apply to other avenues of human
endeavor? At least do no HARM! Dont HARM "the good cause",
whatever that might be.

In Phil's case, I have come to wonder exactly what his "cause"
really is. Mine is the furtherance of science, even if the
only way I can contribute is by trying to put some
"human-ness" and decency into the science. What is his agenda
and how does his preaching hate further it? Does it make the
hard core, conservative, "born-again" people any less
concerned about what scientists might do if given "power and
money"? Does it make the scientifically oriented community
more solid and steadfast to resist those things that might
detract from the pursuit of science? Does it even win over
some of the "middle ground" who might start to see science for
its beauty, its economic benefits and simply the wonder of
finding out new things? Or does it just make him feel big and
important. Well. . . . who knows, but actions do speak louder
that words even on newsgroups! 8-)

Regards bk

[Mb]

John H. Wilson <j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:

> >
> > All this should be enough data to support at least the
> > gene flow between african sub populations, which could
> > give eve´s single population a hard stance.
> >
> And this is what is not clear. Stance? Any further
> elaboration possible?
>

Well, this was meant as a final remark concerning the strict
ooA position proponing that modern human are the result of a
speciation process which happened in a single isolated
population inside africa.

If the genetic analyses of Hey and other authors are correct,
means if the population was already separated into sub-pop's
before modern human emerged, which might be supported by the
points I made above (from White to Nm) then this classic ooA
claim is harder to maintain.

Michael

[Mb]

Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

Ups, are we in a molecular debate?

I thought that I was about correcting some of your misleading
statements.

> .. Well I'm stuck here till my wife gets back...

Okay, so I will stuck here until my daughter is crying for
milk and entertainement ;->

> >..this addresses anything but J.W's comment, it´s the usual
> >ballyhoo.
>
> O.K. Half of J.W's argument is correct, I think this is all
> but obvious, but the second half is not really
> relevant.

J.W. made just one comment -mtDNA lineages can be lost-
which could suggest that a contribution of NeanderDNA
can´t be excluded.

Since you now admitted the loss of lineages and - even more -
said that "they [Levantine N's] may have contributed DNA to
humans as humans expanded", I do consider this point as
clearified.

> Do I need to discuss the entire molecular database
> everytime I post.

That you blessed him - and now me with an even bigger
excerpt - about your mtDNA investigations was not necessary,
- but that was thanks to your wife ;-> obviously not a
problem for you.

Anyway,

what I´d like to know is based on which data you´ve calculated
that 1ME equals 35,500 years?

And what shell one think about this statement:

> One of the patterns seems to coalesce to the swiss alps
> based on numbers
about 75 to 100 >kya,

How should a mtDNA pattern of modern humans coalesce to the
swiss alps 75kya+ ???

>
>
> >1) this paper is not intended to "show that [PDHA1]
> > diversity stems [from] out[side] of africa", instead it
> > reveals that the PDHA1 gene tree is as old as 1.8
> > million years, is separated into two main branches
> > whereby one consists exclusively of african haplotypes
> > and the other of non-african + one african haplotype and
> > thus is going to demonstrate that ancient populations
> > had been structurized into sub-populations.
>
> And I criticize them for undersampling certain african
> groups.

To criticize a work for a particular reason is one thing, to
misrepresent it's content is another.

> What YOU have to realize is that when you hit a node of deep
> diversity for ANYTHING, you are neccesarily compelled to do
> more sampling in the place where that diversity is deepest.

I do realize this and the authors have realized this too. The
point is that they found a fixed difference between the two
branches and that the probablity to obtain the resulting
pattern can be calculated as being extremly low. Additional
samples could reveal additional shared haplotypes but won't
change general picture nor the deepth of the tree. Besides
that they are in good company because their results fit into
what others found at other loci. So I think this paper is
justified, there are weaker ones.

> Those 2 major alleles are found side by side in north
> central africa, but they did not do alot of sequencing from
> that region.

Huh? How should they be found "side by side in north central
africa"? The set of african samples consists of south african
Bantu, khoisan, pygmy and sengalese and was compared to
eurasian sequences - so what??

> I was not the only one to fault them on this.

Who else was it and where can I find his critique?

>
> >The migration coefficient Nm necessary to keep genetic
> >homogeneity is estimated to be 1, i.e one emigrant per
> >generation is sufficient to prevent a speciation from
> >happen. For modern humans Nm has been estimated to be about
> >2, for other species values as far as 0,2 have been
> >observed.
>
> But you assume the mechanism of species is driven by
> geographic isolation.

I said nothing particular about the kind of speciation, be it
allopatric, sympatric whatever. As long as the conditions are
such that the number of emigrants from outside can enter a
population in the range given above a speciation would be
prevented and given the high mobility of humans this is what I
suggest for paleo africa.

> Speciation after the fact is demonstrative of a lack of
> outgroup character in a population that has infiltrated a
> potentially interbreeding population, but failed to produce
> viable/fertile crossprogeny of any degree of success. This
> is absolutely concludable from the genetic data for the
> interaction of Classic Neandertals and Humans....

Which genetic data should suggest this? mtDNA can`t.

> .... Secondarily the estimates of population size and
> duration of human existence in africa suggest that there was
> a foci of speciation within the hominids of africa,
> suggesting a regional limitation, possibly an isolation..
>

in other words a geographic isolation.

Anyway - this above paragraph is what I would call extremely
foggy. It seems you assume not assume, whatever related to
speciation.

> >All this should be enough data to support at least the gene
> >flow between african sub populations, which could give
> >eve´s single population a hard stance.
>
>
> Let's be frank here since you are essentially trying to say
> the same damn thing I present in my site. My expectation is
> that there were AHS subpopulations (or species) living in
> africa at the time of appearance of AMH from some regionally
> definable area within africa.

Since you admit sub-populations and the possible extra-african
genetic input we might be on some kind of basic agreement. I
will have a look at your website, guess that we might differ
as far as pop-sizes and presumed bottlenecks are considered,
than I´ll come back later - the little beast is just to crying
to hard since a while.

Michael

[Bob Keeter]

in article 46e43451.0205071600.b63a6e6@posting.google.com,
ejudy at ejudy@my-deja.com wrote on 5/7/02 7:00 PM:

Snippage. . . . . . .

>
> Man-oh-man, i am good at this de-encryption stuff, eh? Just
> pose the questions and i'll find the answers!
>
> ejudy

Perhaps you are, perhaps you arent. But since this IS a
scientifically oriented newsgroup generally along the lines of
anthropology, which DOES in one way or another relate to human
behavior, lets exercise some scientific methodology on that
"de-encryption stuff", eh?

We will give you a quick test!

Multiple choice test!

Q: Why is D3 (in the world with R2D2 and C3PO, We can
certainly let Dear
Qa. Deitiker be D3, you can even refer to me as A2S or
something similar, but I'll leave that to you!) er. . .ah.
. . yes us senile ole cardiac patients have to jumpstart
the ticker every now and then and it plays havoc with the
neural synapses. . . we get confused and our atttention
wanders . .
. anyway, before i drift of into more reminescing,
warstories, or something. . . .

Why is D3 so inherently superior, in his own eyes and
apparently in yours, to anyone who happens to disagree with
him or even question his divinations?

Now for the possible answers. . . . . . . . . .

a.) He is GOD and an angry, dissatisfied, insecure and
threatened god at that.

b.) He really does not have any emotion, compassion, or
concern for his fellow man, of course he has yet to find his
"fellow man", so whats the problem?!?!

c.) Its the result of post-traumatic syndrome from the days
spent chasing those middle-aged freshmen only to find that
with the right inspiration even they could keep two or three
steps ahead of him.

d.) It makes him feel powerful to pretend to pass judgement
and exact punishment. (yep some people really do get their
yuks with that kind of thing, some pretty famous ones too!
Even a French nobleman of some ill repute!)

e.) He uses it as an excuse for disagreements, sort of a
self-imposed "screen" that explains everything in terms of
someone's vendetta and their personal ignorance instead of
ANYTHING that he could possibly be doing. Sort of an inverse
inferiority complex if you will.

f.) He just LOVES (kissy-kissy!) the attention that it
brings. (guess I could imagine a few other ways to gain
that moment of fame.)

If you notice, not a single one of them includes anything
whatsoever about contributing to the good of science, the good
of society or anything even remotely close to that. I keep
asking him why, and all I get is evasion, diversion,
long-winded dissertations on the weather, politics, economics
and the salinity of the dead sea, but not one answer. If you
can find one, and obviously you must, please share, otherwise
I see his grand act as a great disservice to the science that
he professses to support, a waste of his expetise, training
and intelligence! And that is sad. In fact, that is far more
of an insult to his science than any stupid question or inane
answer that the dullest of villiage idiots, myself included of
course, could ever perpetrate.

Regards bk

[Bob Keeter]

Sometimes an event occurs that just plain deserves some
attention, and even some cheers from the stands! The below
link is to an article pertinent to the discussion on this
thread and potentially relevant to just about everybody!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9775-2002-
Apr30.html

The basic gist is that Republican Senator Orrin Hatch has come
down solidly on the side of stem cell research and limited
human cloning. In other words, one of the most religiously
conservative US senators, from one of the most religiously
conservative states has been PERSUADED to go against some of
the teachings of his religious background, at least as
interpreted by the truely shrill religious conservatives. That
is a major step for medical research in the US and a pretty
clear demonstration that the powers of persuasion and logic
can work, even for one so dependent on the opinion of his
constituency as a US Senator.

It begs me to ask the question of our noble Dr. Deitiker,. .
. . . . . .

How may times do you think that the medical researchers and
others who were seeking the passage of this bill told the
Honorable Senator from Utah that his religion was a farce and
that he was a fool for believing in it?

Rhetorical question of course, but perhaps an indication that
at least in some circles science is "winning". Furthermore it
might even lay out the path to success in those kinds of
confrontations, operating within the system of the US
constitution and the rule of law, through sound and reasoned
logic, calm professional demeanor and perhaps a bit less
hate-inspiring invective! The medical researchers not only got
Hatch's vote, they got his public endorsement! Not bad for a
bunch of namby-pamby, gutless, people (at least by PDs
definition!) who were at least willing to treat a
non-scientist, non-PhD, religious person as a human being.

Three cheers for the researchers and politicians and certainly
for Senator Hatch, who placed the general benefit of science
above his own personal religious beliefs.

Now Philip, my man, I must ask again, what purpose does all of
the hate and invective against religious conservatives (or any
other group that might disagree with you!) serve? What
"benefit" do you or the world of science gain by insulting
honest, well-meaning people, geneticists or churchgoers, who
just dont happen to agree with you? Perhaps just as much as
the over-enthusiastic, pumped up and ranting evangelical
minister who might say that all who believe in Darwin are
damned? Gains no converts to the cause, hardens the hearts of
the opposition, and generally insults those that disagree
while also embarassing those that might otherwise support the
proposition.

Might the outcome of the events with Sen. Hatch possibly be a
reason for a kinder and gentler, more compassionate and
"human" Philip? I doubt it, but lets cross our collective
fingers and see if the logic has a chance against the ego! 8-)

Regards bk

[John H. Wi]

"mb" <musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in message
news:1fbpbs7.x896kz3vxjuoN%musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de...
> John H. Wilson <j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:
a hard
> > > stance.
> > >
> If the genetic analyses of Hey and other authors are
> correct, means if the population was already separated into
> sub-pop's before modern human emerged, which might be
> supported by the points I made above (from White to Nm) then
> this classic ooA claim is harder to maintain.
>
>
OK, clear. A hard stance could mean fixed, with good
evidence for it, or the above. Thanks. John GW

[John H. Wi]

"mb" <musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in message
news:1fbph7n.h8v57c1r0e5qtN%musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de...
> > O.K. Half of J.W's argument is correct, I think this is
> > all but
obvious,
> > but the second half is not really relevant.
>
> J.W. made just one comment -mtDNA lineages can be lost-
> which could suggest that a contribution of NeanderDNA
> can´t be excluded.
>
Philip may be referring back to an argument in an
earlier thread about the intellectual and linguistic
capacity of HN. It was commented that they were
genetically different, and my comment about DNA was
simply to note that all we know is that their body
structure was genetically different. Plus perhaps some
inferred (with uncertainty) behaviour from their not
interacting much between groups. Emotional perhaps. The
only valid argument, IMO, that Philip and Lorenzo
advanced in that thread was that HN did not adopt HS
technology, and I can think of several reasons for that
that have little to do with intelligence. Excluding
emotions, such as a more terriitorial drive.

Regards
John GW

[Lorenzo L.]

"John H. Wilson" wrote:
>
> "mb" <musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in message news:-
> 1fbph7n.h8v57c1r0e5qtN%musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de...
> > > O.K. Half of J.W's argument is correct, I think this is
> > > all but
> obvious,
> > > but the second half is not really relevant.
> >
> > J.W. made just one comment -mtDNA lineages can be lost-
> > which could suggest that a contribution of NeanderDNA
> > can´t be excluded.
> >
> Philip may be referring back to an argument in an
> earlier thread about the intellectual and linguistic
> capacity of HN. It was commented that they were
> genetically different, and my comment about DNA was
> simply to note that all we know is that their body
> structure was genetically different. Plus perhaps
> some inferred (with uncertainty) behaviour from their
> not interacting much between groups. Emotional
> perhaps. The only valid argument, IMO, that Philip
> and Lorenzo advanced in that thread was that HN did
> not adopt HS technology, and I can think of several
> reasons for that that have little to do with
> intelligence. Excluding emotions, such as a more
> terriitorial drive.
>
> Regards
> John GW

The emotions has been by the people with an unreasoning
affinity for Neandertals to the exclusion of all other
ancient humans.

Possible reasons Neandertals did not generally adapt sapiens
technology:
1. They died from disease contacted from the sapiens invaders.
2. They ran like the dickens at the first sight of the funny
looking skinny guys.
3. The funny looking skinny guys killed and ate them all.
4. The funny looking skinny guys killed all the easy to hunt
animals and they had to leave to find dinner.
5. The funny looking skinny guys took all the good caves and
drove property prices up.
6. Their gods told them not to.
7. The space aliens transported them all to another planet.

Any others?

Lorenzo L. Love http://home.thegrid.net/~lllove

"The best part about being a family is finding people you want
to kill and working together to kill them." Eric Duckman

[Philip Dei]

On Mon, 06 May 2002 22:51:00 GMT, Bob Keeter
<rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote:

>How may times do you think that the medical researchers and
>others who were seeking the passage of this bill told the
>Honorable Senator from Utah that his religion was a farce and
>that he was a fool for believing in it?

Think about it you come from a state with a developing medical
center. The mormons are not the same crack-ball fundies as the
southern babtist, they may ban human cloning in their own
states, walla- that kind of research is stopped. YOu attract
those stem cell guys to your neck of the woods. You get
patients from all over the world to come, your medical center
grows, you make money.

In 1940s Baylor University Medical (as in bible thumping
Baylor, Home of the "nations oldest virgins" and highest
freshman pregnancy rate), moved from its home in Dallas to a
subdivided cattle ranch along Braes Bayou in houston. It was
associated with Methodist Hospital. In the 1960s a guy by
the name of Micheal DeBakey started doing heart surgery.
Since that time the medical center has grown in size from 5
to 20% per year to its current size of 200 buildings and
70,000 employees, students and volunteers (average salary is
45,000/year) supported by about 3 times as many dollars.
Medical Center is largest in the world. Medical center is
now know as the '2nd Downtown'. Were so important we are
going to get our own train, and Houstonians HATE trains. Now
if you go back to 1960, heart surgery was pretty
controversial stuff, take body parts out of pigs and other
people and putting them into humans was considered
sacrilidge to many people. But here down in the religious,
bible thumping tip of the bible belt, Houston, some folks
thought this was our opportunity to be in the spot-light.
Houston itself didn't exist until about 1880 and population
was pretty dinky until the advent of airconditioning. So ole
baylor became independent of Baylor College, Got a Jewish
institute, built several buildings, added 5 or 6
departments, took down the Barbers pole and started
pretending to be a real medical school, and of course if you
were good you could follow debakey into the operating room.
That was 1970. today Baylor college is a huge corperation,
with a high ________ board of trustees, who bring in high $
consultants trained at Harvard business school (like Jeff
Skilling of Enron fame) to tell us how we might actually
screw ourselves up faster than we might have otherwise
screwed ourselves up. Mucho Buckos. The target grant $ per
square foot of space is $400/sq ft/year ($35/month compares
with rental space around the medcenter at $2/month per
square foot but the pay the gas and electric). Can you
imagine what the target rate for space was in 1945? They
would have paid you to just come and occupy the space and
pretend to teach all 5 students who would otherwise be muck
farming the cattle as a means of getting though med school.
You would be paid but you would have to recruit your
patients to get paid. And of course you could probably get a
sympathy grant from the government.

Medical Science is Big business, The med center attraction is
worth all the sports teams and fine arts centers combined.
Your a center, you got researchers who think they got a whole
radical new feild of surgery that will open up the med center
in your state . . . . . . Even Tom Delay, you know that
religious fanatic from sugerland who _____ we should kill all
the palestinians so we can rebuild the temple on the temple
mound and wait for the second coming of christ, even he knows
better than to dis the medical center activities. Many of his
constituants drive every day from his neighborhood up old hway
90 (i.e. the indian trail the spanish renamed after
themselves) into their high dollar jobs at the medical center.
Bad mouth medcenter in public, democratic challenger suddenly
has alot of money in his warchest. Its amazing how RIGHTEOUS a
bible pandering fruitloop can be when dollars in his district
and government money (that we should not spend) are
threatened. All the quotes from the bible could stand in the
way of these hypocrits finding a way to excuse their way
through their own fundementalism and stick their paws out for
a fistful of dollars.

John don't you live down in galveston county, don't you want
to run against Rep. Delay?

Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[Bob Keeter]

>> etc....etc....etc...etc....
>>
Yea, he is a little long on the etc's!

>> This must be Phil's way of trying to entice Bob to move
>> down and do his graduate school in Houston. ;-)))
>>

I do believe that you left out a few right parentheses in
there! 8-) The irony is about right, but the ROTFLMAO part
does not quite come through with the right vigor. Unless of
course the real implication is that I should find some "trade
school" more appropriate with my marginal intellectual
capabilities and potential (which I would have expected from
Philip but not really from you).

>> That's a nice bOnObO solution. Dr. Ruth would say you guys
>> have worked your disagreements out rather nicely.
>>
Well, guess you were reading a different response that I have
the honor to peruse.

As I see it, from my very human (or chimpanzee) viewpoint,
Philip felt, for some indecipherable reason a need to reply to
my rhetorical question! I know that its a big word but I used
it in the intended mode and most usual meaning. In that
response, I see a lot of attempted "logic" as to why this
cited example, documented in print, picture and videotape is
not applicable, and some interesting diversions from the basic
question (which we will deal with in due time! 8-) )

And since he chose to reply to this, I could but do him the
honor of a reply in kind!

>
>
>> How may times do you think that the medical researchers and
>> others who were seeking the passage of this bill told the
>> Honorable Senator from Utah that his religion was a farce
>> and that he was a fool for believing in it?
>>
> Think about it you come from a state with a developing
> medical center. The mormons are not the same crack-ball
> fundies as the southern babtist, they may ban human cloning
> in their own states, walla- that kind of research is
> stopped. YOu attract those stem cell guys to your neck of
> the woods. You get patients from all over the world to come,
> your medical center grows, you make money.
>

Does this mean that the benefits and logic of money went along
with the altruistic motives of a politician? Not to smear Sen.
Hatch, but he IS a politician. Not sure what the revelation is
in your assertion.

> In 1940s Baylor University Medical (as in bible thumping
> Baylor, Home of the "nations oldest virgins" and highest
> freshman pregnancy rate), moved from its home in Dallas to a
> subdivided cattle ranch along Braes Bayou in houston.
>
Being an institute in Houston, I would be forced to assume
that there might be some connection between that first
notworthy apellation and Dr. Deitiker's swave and engratiating
southern demeanor and eloquent persuasive skills! As for the
later item of notoriety, must be the rebound effect! And
"smooch" is not exactly the verb I would suggest.

> It was associated with Methodist Hospital. In the 1960s a
> guy by the name of Micheal DeBakey started doing heart
> surgery. Since that time the medical center has grown in
> size from 5 to 20% per year to its current size of 200
> buildings and 70,000 employees, students and volunteers
> (average salary is 45,000/year) supported by about 3 times
> as many dollars. Medical Center is largest in the world.
> Medical center is now know as the '2nd Downtown'. Were so
> important we are going to get our own train, and Houstonians
> HATE trains. Now if you go back to 1960, heart surgery was
> pretty controversial stuff, take body parts out of pigs and
> other people and putting them into humans was considered
> sacrilidge to many people. But here down in the religious,
> bible thumping tip of the bible belt, Houston, some folks
> thought this was our opportunity to be in the spot-light.
> Houston itself didn't exist until about 1880 and population
> was pretty dinky until the advent of airconditioning. So ole
> baylor became independent of Baylor College, Got a Jewish
> institute, built several buildings, added 5 or 6
> departments, took down the Barbers pole and started
> pretending to be a real medical school, and of course if you
> were good you could follow debakey into the operating room.
> That was 1970. today Baylor college is a huge corperation,
> with a high ________ board of trustees, who bring in high $
> consultants trained at Harvard business school (like Jeff
> Skilling of Enron fame) to tell us how we might actually
> screw ourselves up faster than we might have otherwise
> screwed ourselves up. Mucho Buckos. The target grant $ per
> square foot of space is $400/sq ft/year ($35/month compares
> with rental space around the medcenter at $2/month per
> square foot but the pay the gas and electric). Can you
> imagine what the target rate for space was in 1945?
>
Er. . . . and what does this have to do with the line of
discussion? I thought that the topic was what benefit is
derived from treating people who disagree with you as if they
were some brown slime spilled from a petri dish. Somewhere
back there in ancient times as I was pulling myself up to the
gutter level of a mere bachelaureate I had to take a course in
Economics, so I think I can probably follow most of this, with
a few word and attitude changes of course.

> They would have paid you to just come and occupy the space
> and pretend to teach all 5 students who would otherwise be
> muck farming the cattle as a means of getting though med
> school. You would be paid but you would have to recruit your
> patients to get paid. And of course you could probably get a
> sympathy grant from the government.
>

Now does this perhaps mean that Baylor turned down your
application? ;-) Im obviously going to have to start writing
up a glossary of Dietikerisms.

>
> Medical Science is Big business, The med center attraction
> is worth all the sports teams and fine arts centers
> combined. Your a center, you got researchers who think they
> got a whole radical new feild of surgery that will open up
> the med center in your state . . . . . . Even Tom Delay, you
> know that religious fanatic from sugerland who _____ we
> should kill all the palestinians so we can rebuild the
> temple on the temple mound and wait for the second coming of
> christ, even he knows better than to dis the medical center
> activities. Many of his constituants drive every day from
> his neighborhood up old hway 90 (i.e. the indian trail the
> spanish renamed after themselves) into their high dollar
> jobs at the medical center. Bad mouth medcenter in public,
> democratic challenger suddenly has alot of money in his
> warchest. Its amazing how RIGHTEOUS a bible pandering
> fruitloop can be when dollars in his district and government
> money (that we should not spend) are threatened. All the
> quotes from the bible could stand in the way of these
> hypocrits finding a way to excuse their way through their
> own fundementalism and stick their paws out for a fistful of
> dollars.
>
Looks like more rationalization as to why things happened the
way they did with Sen. Hatch, and why they could NEVER, EVER
conceiveably happen that same way in the fields of
Anthropology and genetics. Makes me feel like I was back in
elementry school where "the dog ate it" was the epitome of
excuses! At least it doesnt take so many words to express and
its a bit less embarassing.

> John don't you live down in galveston county, don't you want
> to run against Rep. Delay?
>

Sounds like a plan! Exercise the rights of that representative
democracy that you seem to like to trash on any opportunity
you might come across.

>
> Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu>
>
Well, enough fun with a thoroughly evasive and non-responsive
reply. Lets repose the basic question!

At the risk of being repetitious, . . . . . and I quote. . . .
. .

" Now Philip, my man, I must ask again, what purpose does all
of the hate and invective against religious conservatives (or
any other group that might disagree with you!) serve? What
"benefit" do you or the world of science gain by insulting
honest, well-meaning people, geneticists or churchgoers, who
just dont happen to agree with you? Perhaps just as much as
the over-enthusiastic, pumped up and ranting evangelical
minister who might say that all who believe in Darwin are
damned? Gains no converts to the cause, hardens the hearts of
the opposition, and generally insults those that disagree
while also embarassing those that might otherwise support the
proposition. "

What "benefit" do you get from treating those that disagree
with you, for whatever reason, with such aloof disdain, brazen
disrespect and insulting self-serving superiority? There MUST
be a reason and a very logical reason otherwise you, being a
educated man of science and cold hard logic, would not set out
to alienate those people who, like Sen Hatch, are sometimes in
a position to influence all of those "anti-Deitiker"
congressional acts that you are always upset about. The
"hatch" story just proves that the basic tenet of that
philosophy, i.e. the Deitiker axiom "that the "fundies" are an
all-round universal, irretreviable, uncompromising and totally
resolute anathema to science", is wrong. Why are you dodging
the basic question as posed and offering up a story about the
mating habits of the Baylor coed class and heart surgery?

Are the words too big or too phlebian? If so, just tell me
which and I will correct it in either direction! 8-)

And I repeat my statement from a long time ago, a little bit
if decency, professionalism and logic can go a long way, at
least with "fundies" like Sen. Hatch. Even if it fails at
least it does not make people ashamed of being associated with
the science! A spoon full of sugar. . . . . remember that?

Of course if you tried that and the system actually WORKED,
there would be so few excuses! 8-)

Regards bk

--
In all of the right places,
. . . . . my name is Mudd!

[Bob Keeter]

in article 3CD75A6F.9AB4DB2B@thegrid.net, Lorenzo L. Love at
lllove@thegrid.net wrote on 5/6/02 11:36 PM:

Snippage. . . . . .
>
> The emotions has been by the people with an unreasoning
> affinity for Neandertals to the exclusion of all other
> ancient humans.
>
> Possible reasons Neandertals did not generally adapt sapiens
> technology:
> 1. They died from disease contacted from the sapiens
> invaders.

"And here we have the "top answer"" yells Richard Dawson!

> 2. They ran like the dickens at the first sight of the funny
> looking skinny guys.

Bull dog a mastodon and run from an HSS? Dont think so
that Lorenzo!

> 3. The funny looking skinny guys killed and ate them all.

Likely answer, HOWEVER perhaps the opposite sense would be an
easy way to transfer those bugs from #1 above. Consider Kuru
and "mad cow". Could possibly be that being killed and eaten
was the deathblow to a few HSS but was the final curtain for
all of the HN!

> 4. The funny looking skinny guys killed all the easy to hunt
> animals and they had to leave to find dinner.

Thats POSSIBLE, but what in the HSS toolkit could have
made them prohibitively better predators on the animals
hunted by HN?

> 5. The funny looking skinny guys took all the good caves and
> drove property prices up.

Now thats a possibility! Forget to use DIAL and drive of the
delicate-nosed Neanderthals! 8-)

> 6. Their gods told them not to.

OOOOOOPPPPPPPSSSSSS!!!!!! Now you are going to get Philip all
"het up" again!

> 7. The space aliens transported them all to another planet.
>

EUREKA! EUREKA! EUREKA! Now if YOU go running naked down the
street they will come by and make sure that you have a nice
warm place to sleep, a good filling dinner. . . . . . . 8-0

> Any others?
>

As Johnny was wont to say. . . . . . . . .

Not so fast there mammoth breath! 8-)

The Neanderthals did not adopt HSS toolkits because:

1. Actually, they did to a degree commensurate to their
contact with the HSS newcommers! By the time Pizarro
encountered the Inca, they had already been decimated by
smallpox (in the space of only a couple of years of
Spaniards setting foot in South America!)

2. They saw no real advantages to the new, more cosmetically
pleasing tool kit! A nice sharp edge in a rough-cut stone
tool is just as sharp (and sometimes even sharper!) than a
carefully fashioned stone tool. In one case, a couple of
quick whacks with a hammerstone gives you a tool, in the
other case, many minutes if not hours is spent carefully
flaking the very fine "artwork".

3. Their culture was prone to respond very conservatively to
change and the disease killed them all too quickly. (see
#1 above) The Neanderthals had been "kings of the roost"
for around 250,000 years or so when these new toys came
along and had been doing a pretty respectable job of
surviving, so "why change"?

4. Philip was the bone tool salesman? 8-)

Regards bk

>
> "The best part about being a family is finding people
> you want to kill and working together to kill them."
> Eric Duckman

Just dont forget the fava beans and a nice bottle of chianti!

[John H. Wi]

"Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:B8FDCA95.D0B2%rkeeter@earthlink.net...
> in article 3CD75A6F.9AB4DB2B@thegrid.net, > The
> Neanderthals did not
adopt HSS toolkits because:
>
> 1. Actually, they did to a degree commensurate to their
> contact with the HSS newcommers! By the time Pizarro
> encountered the Inca, they had
already
> been decimated by smallpox (in the space of only a couple of
> years of Spaniards setting foot in South America!)
>
> 2. They saw no real advantages to the new, more
> cosmetically pleasing
tool
> kit! A nice sharp edge in a rough-cut stone tool is just as
> sharp (and sometimes even sharper!) than a carefully
> fashioned stone tool. In one case, a couple of quick whacks
> with a hammerstone gives you a tool, in the other case, many
> minutes if not hours is spent carefully flaking the very
> fine "artwork".
>
> 3. Their culture was prone to respond very conservatively
> to change and
the
> disease killed them all too quickly. (see #1 above) The
> Neanderthals had been "kings of the roost" for around
> 250,000 years or so when these new
toys
> came along and had been doing a pretty respectable job of
> surviving, so
"why
> change"?
>
> 4. Philip was the bone tool salesman? 8-)
>

Well, for one thing, do we know they didn't.? It has been
remarked by someone that a HN site can be distinguished
from a HS one, even with HN remains. Circular reasoning.
Believe a good many anthropologists expected to find HN
primitive - did they tend to see what they expected? I'm
going to take it as given that humans learn their
techniques, where an insect follows a fixed action
pattern. Wolves learn too, as far as that goes. So if I
compare HN and HS to bears or lions, and wolves, i am
talking about body structure. We can have ambush
predators and chase predators. Generally, I think, ambush
predators are more heavily built than chase predators..
Also, exactly how did HS kill an aurochs, for example. At
a guess, shot it is an arrow or javelin and tracked it.
Like the Tarahumaras. Lighter body structure an
advantage. Need at least a tribal social system and large
controlled area, I think - not much point in wounding an
animal so the extended family group two territories over
will get it. With a small territory, have to close with
the prey. Ambush predators can exist in the same
territory as chase predators, but not if the chase
predators were to develop the ability to fill both
niches. Can't remember, but didn't the short faced bears
(chasers) become extinct when the dog family evolved?
Grizzlies survived. Also, an ambush predator probably not
too efficient on the steppe, but, if the prey wintered in
timbered valleys, HN may have developed the ability to
kill enough meat and preserve it to survive the winter.
We don't know their hunting techniques. In this case,
again, they would need to close with the game. If HS were
getting the game on the steppe, would have put HN at a
disadvantage. Anothher point. A weapon system generally
is a package, along with the tactics. Unless the entire
package is obtained, an older, not too inferior package
may work better. If a niche is competently filled, the
newcomer cannot easily move into it. Most HS don't invent
things, either. One does and others take it up. HS came
from a larger area, more people at the upper end of the
spectrum to invent. HN didn't communicate extensively.
Could a family group of 40 or so stand up to a tribe of,
say, 1500? HN at the interface might have adopted the
toolkit, and been wiped out before they lasted long
enough to leave a trace. 1000 years is a long time - how
many sites do we have per 1000 years? I don't claim to
know what happened, but I do believe that nobody else
does. Regards John GW

[Philip Dei]

On Mon, 6 May 2002 20:11:23 +0200,
musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de (mb) wrote:

>what I´d like to know is based on which data you´ve
>calculated that 1ME equals 35,500 years?

This is based on a 5 my LCA for chimp and based on the region
of 16124-16392, the fastest evolving part of HV1. Its the
average length between any type of event, transition,
transversion, insertion or deletion. Transitions were found to
occur at a frequency of 11.2 to 1 relative to transversions in
chimpanzees and gorilla. The values for transitions relative
to insertions or deletions

Therefore I found the 15:1 value of lower primates and
gorilla to be wrong. Using chimpanzee, human and chimpanzee I
found about 283 ME between any given chimpanzee and any given
human when transition fade and transversion fade is corrected
for (as best as possible). That creates a average interval
between mutational events ME of 35500 years. Also the number
of transversion was calculated to be 19.3 (.3 based on the
variation in number of transversions from largely african
sequences). The CI given on my website combine both the
expected variation around
19.3 transversion (CI) mulitplied by the assumption that the
4-6 my LCA is a 70% confidence interval and the inteval
then extrapolated to the 96% range giving a range around
the any given ME of 55% (times the variation in probability
distribution of any ME). For a ME the age of appearance is
centered in a large range. If one sees derivative alleles
in the populations, that range shrinks but it can never
shrink to smaller than 55%. This is possibly the most
accurate CI compared to any in the literature, and
expection is that the range of 96% interval in most papers
is grossly understated.

>And what shell one think about this statement:

I couldn't give a scallop.

>> One of the patterns seems to coalesce to the swiss alps
>> based on numbers
>about 75 to 100 >kya,
>
>How should a mtDNA pattern of modern humans coalesce to the
>swiss alps 75kya+ ???

Sorry, no, this discussion will be done next winter. No more
mtDNA analysis this year. I didn't even want to get into this
one except that I felt the east asian DB was lacking.

>> >1) this paper is not intended to "show that [PDHA1]
>> > diversity stems [from] out[side] of africa", instead it
>> > reveals that the PDHA1 gene tree is as old as 1.8
>> > million years, is separated into two main branches
>> > whereby one consists exclusively of african haplotypes
>> > and the other of non-african + one african haplotype
>> > and thus is going to demonstrate that ancient
>> > populations had been structurized into sub-populations.
>>
>> And I criticize them for undersampling certain african
>> groups.
>
>To criticize a work for a particular reason is one thing, to
>misrepresent it's content is another.

Actually if I was to properly represent the content of the
data, we would open a whole nother issue. Undersampling is
undersampling. Let me put it like this, not only can the paper
be faulted on the sampling of africa, but it can also be
faulted on the representation of chimpanzee sequence and
should have for reasons included additional chimpanzee
sequence information. If you carefully inspect and compare the
sequences to chimpanzee reference you might actually find that
this dating is an underestimate of the MRCA for this loci. You
can add to this the fact there is little evidence for gene
conversion and recombination which is suggestive that this
loci may be even more slowly evolving than you think and that
it was not fixed as it transited from the
C/H LCA side. PDAH1 has a number of complexities in which some
researchers have suggested it be disregarded or branches
treated as separately evolving loci (see takahata). I
however do not, I think we need to increase the sampling of
this loci and sample this loci from chimpanzee, gorilla.
Until then I reserve further judgment about PDAH1. This
could be more important than YOU think in terms of defining
human migrations or it could be behaving anomoluously.
Either way we need to know.

>> What YOU have to realize is that when you hit a node of
>> deep diversity for ANYTHING, you are neccesarily compelled
>> to do more sampling in the place where that diversity is
>> deepest.
>
>I do realize this and the authors have realized this too. The
>point is that they found a fixed difference between the two
>branches and that the probablity to obtain the resulting
>pattern can be calculated as being extremly low.

Yes with no recombination between each other or evidence of
recombination of gene conversion within the branches. Now I
don't know about you but this strikes me as being interesting.
And to top this off, one branch is alot more closely related
to chimpanzee than the other, hmmmm. So what is going on with
PDAH1. Answer, with better sampling we might know. PDAH1 MRCA
is older than 1.8 my, in fact it is much older than 1.8 my,
because the source of add diversification (GC and RC) have
been suppressed for unknown reason and the mutation rates
within human genome are overrepresented by RC and single point
GC. Not only has PDAH1 bled through the human speciation
event, but it has also bled through the erectoid speciation
event and also bled through the C/H bilateral speciation
events. OK, this is my opinion, problem is we don't have
enough sample. But since my _opinion_ is possibly true we
should reserve judgment of the evolution of PDAH1 until more
sample is obtained. Am I singling out Harris and Hey? you will
find that I have characterized every molecular paper to date,
including Vigilante and Ingman, and the best paper Takahata et
al, I have found error with. I have been able to correct
Vigilant because subsequent information has been added in
terms of chimpanzee and gorilla. I have been able to correct
Takahata (whom I differ only in the subtely of the approach),
by separating the loci into ploidy groups. I cannot correct
Harris and Hey because there is no more added sequence
information on PDAH1. There are other researchers who have
found evidence of multiple bleedthrough events. The HLA loci
are good examples as Ayala points out with MRCA at 60 million
years but these are under heterozygous selection coefficients.
Some of the bled through supertypes are restricted to minority
of african groups, none however is specfic to eurasian only.
But that is how the cookie crumbles, so to speak. I will spare
you 10 mechanisms that I could come up to explain its
assymetric distribution and just say: Extemely low is probable
if you study enough unfixed autosomal loci. Before PDAH1 paper
was published I predicted in 1996, here in this newsgroup that
some autosomal alleles (5 to 10%) were likely to look as if
the expanded from eurasia. This likelihood is evident if you
have ever modeled the constriction of genes in populations.
For example alleles may linger at long times at low
frequencies before being excluded, and may segregate to
particular regions of the population. If the exclusion
boundaries widen assymetrically, depending on how close one is
to center of the assymetric expansion will determine,
eventually how assymetric the allele distribution is. The
mtDNA evidence is unequivocable (but could use more african
sequence) the boundary opened up to the north and east
rapidly, in some lineages there is no distinctions to be made
between african expansions and eurasians. Suggesting the rate
of growth in africa was sufficient to plapce most emigrating
groups at the periphery of africa before a single ME had
occured in most of the alleles, from the point of time in
africa. Secondarily within 1 ME (on average) we see subfoci
appearing in indonesia, india, and in the west. Thus all of
this seems to have occurred within 40 ky of the end of the
constriction. While african alleles also expanded southward,
those expansions appear to have started slightly earlier and
were slower growing. Therefore it 'appears' that the largest
assymetry in growth occured between the sengalese and somalian
and this assymetry was carried into eurasian.

As I postulated earlier, if the foci of the eurasian branch
of PDAH1 is center in some remote niger group and could be
explained by back waves, then we have a good case for it
being a truely eurasian allele and possible exemplary of
minor contribution. But if the allele frequencies are
spread more evenly from kenya to senegal and traces can be
found south of central africa, then this is simply another
bleed through variant [That should be studied further for
other reasons].

So if the authors realize this why haven't they
resampled africa.

> Additional samples could reveal additional shared haplotypes
> but won't change general picture nor the deepth of the tree.
> Besides that they are in good company because their results
> fit into what others found at other loci. So I think this
> paper is justified, there are weaker ones.

Sorry, No, you can't say this. You cannot predict the
diversity of subpopulations you have never examined.

>> Those 2 major alleles are found side by side in north
>> central africa, but they did not do alot of sequencing from
>> that region.
>
>Huh? How should they be found "side by side in north central
>africa"? The set of african samples consists of south african
>Bantu, khoisan, pygmy and sengalese and was compared to
>eurasian sequences - so what??

Senegalese are part of the niger/nigerian group, this is north
of the equator and slightly west. Biaka and Mbuti, the two
remaining groups, biaka are from Central African Republic and
cameroon, And Mbuti slightly west of that I beleive Uganda.

>> But you assume the mechanism of species is driven by
>> geographic isolation.
>
>I said nothing particular about the kind of speciation, be it
>allopatric, sympatric whatever. As long as the conditions are
>such that the number of emigrants from outside can enter a
>population in the range given above a speciation would be
>prevented and given the high mobility of humans this is what
>I suggest for paleo africa.

Based on what evidence; how do you know that some group in
africa did not move into a new domain and isolate themselves.
This is the point of the mtDNA and Y chromosomal studies.
While you may surmise reasons why humans did not isolate, the
data clearly indicates that some group did, and for a long
time. Even if you ignore mtDNA, approximately 30% of human
genes have been fixed in the last 400 ky. Some constriction
event happened in africa, no reasonable person debates this.
The debate is whether there was a minor amount of depost facto
intermixing with AHS or other exoafrican hominid groups. I
cannot resolve the african AHS issue any more specifically
than Takahata only to say I predict the constriction lasted
from 450 kya to 150 kya and there would be a finite cap on
later input, statistically definable as less than 12%, but
there is limited evidence for reduced population sizes before
that because most autosomal alleles MRCA within the last 1.3
my. That is, of course, dependent on the accuracy of the clock
calibrations of X-linked and Autosomals which, frankly, I
don't trust at all.

>> Speciation after the fact is demonstrative of a lack of
>> outgroup character in a population that has infiltrated a
>> potentially interbreeding population, but failed to produce
>> viable/fertile crossprogeny of any degree of success. This
>> is absolutely concludable from the genetic data for the
>> interaction of Classic Neandertals and Humans....
>
>Which genetic data should suggest this? mtDNA can`t.
>
>> .... Secondarily the estimates of population size and
>> duration of human existence in africa suggest that there
>> was a foci of speciation within the hominids of africa,
>> suggesting a regional limitation, possibly an isolation..
>>
>
>in other words a geographic isolation.
>
>Anyway - this above paragraph is what I would call extremely
>foggy. It seems you assume not assume, whatever related to
>speciation.
>
>> >All this should be enough data to support at least the
>> >gene flow between african sub populations, which could
>> >give eve´s single population a hard stance.
>>
>>
>> Let's be frank here since you are essentially trying to say
>> the same damn thing I present in my site. My expectation is
>> that there were AHS subpopulations (or species) living in
>> africa at the time of appearance of AMH from some
>> regionally definable area within africa.
>
>Since you admit sub-populations and the possible
>extra-african genetic input we might be on some kind of basic
>agreement. I will have a look at your website, guess that we
>might differ as far as pop-sizes and presumed bottlenecks are
>considered, than I´ll come back later - the little beast is
>just to crying to hard since a while.
>
>
>Michael

Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Philip Dei]

On Tue, 07 May 2002 01:20:30 GMT, "John H. Wilson"
<j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:

>
>"mb" <musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote in message
>news:1fbpbs7.x896kz3vxjuoN%musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de...
>> John H. Wilson <j.gissw@verizon.net> wrote:
> a hard
>> > > stance.
>> > >
> > If the genetic analyses of Hey and other authors are
> > correct, means if
>> the population was already separated into sub-pop's before
>> modern human emerged, which might be supported by the
>> points I made above (from White to Nm) then this classic
>> ooA claim is harder to maintain.
>>
>>
> OK, clear. A hard stance could mean fixed, with good
> evidence for it, or the above.

Such as stance is near impossible not because of mtDNA
representation in humans, but because the length of the
constriction was inadequate to fix all alleles. I can create a
model that shows after 20 of 30 runs I get a minor allele that
fortuitously expands with an asymmetric population expansion.
The base problem is this.

Oberved number of assymetric expansion - Expected number of
assymetric expansion = deviation from expectations. That can
be represented by some %.

Expected number of assymetric expansion (% of autosomal DNA)
+/- 2S.D. contains the deviation. Does the fact that deviation
is within the 2 S.D. deviation rule out the possibility of
intermixing. Nope. Does it support intermixing. Nope.

Theoretically we should not include alternative explanations
but the problem is that the determination of fixed/unfixed
ratios, and thus the S.D. is logically connected to the number
of alleles that assymetrically expand, like PDHA1, because
either they were fixed, and then mixed, or they are bleed
through, since we don't know this apriori we might need to
adjust up the frequency of fixed autosomals and decrease the
S.D. values. Therefore the model must be tolerant of
non-constriction contribution even if it does not require it,
there is no obvious default hypothesis with regard to africa.
However since the number of alleles that coalesce in africa
exceed the number of unfixed alleles that coalesce elsewhere
by a large ratio, we can create a psuedo-Null hypothesis
regarding african versus non african contribution. The null
hypothesis being no contribution came from exoafricans, and
the test would be to prove that some did. MB thinks that PDAH1
is an example, and I argue that we need more data on this
allele and also examine its longer term behavior in the
population. He accepts the authors conclusions at face value,
and I never accept any authors conclusion at face value.



Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Gisele Hor]

On Wed, 08 May 2002 13:18:03 -0500, Philip Deitiker
<pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:

[...]
>Way back about 3 years ago a discussion began about
>recombination of mtDNA. While I am generally opposed to this
>idea one individual which I criticized came back with some
>elements of proof, having provided these I encouraged that
>individual to look further....

Did you know, Philip, that, although I had written many
postings on mtDNA recombination in various forums, you were
the *first* individual to ever ask me for proof?

Gisele

[Bob Keeter]

in article v9hidu8n0agerj6q4c7h9rekqebv0slfrl@4ax.com, Philip
Deitiker at pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu wrote on 5/8/02 1:18 PM:

> On Tue, 07 May 2002 21:22:43 GMT, Bob Keeter
> <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote:

Snippage. . . . .

> Water, inevitably seeks its own level.
snip
> In the second case the individual had
> numerous path, but chooses to walk in the
> gutter. Like water, he has reached his
> level.
>

Actually the gutter is not all that lonely of a place. Matter
of fact its probably a lot warmer and friendly place than the
top of that tower, PHilip. AND its a lot less of a fall.

Snippage. . .
>
> You want to change the spots on a leopard because you like
> the stripes on a tiger, but a leopard with stripes is still
> a leopard, it will never be a tiger. However, if you want
> scientist to change to be more like a politician, but
> politicians are facicious, and if scientist became facicious
> they would no longer be scientist, they would be little
> Enron's running around trying to get peoples money but
> producing no product. I am telling you strait up. If you
> like to the whole XOXOXOXOXOXOXOs to the whole spill you
> waste space and only low-minded insecure people will ever be
> impressed by it.
>

And the high-minded superior people will turn their heads in
disdain? Guess the realities of our worlds are very different.
But thats why Im in the gutter and you are WAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY up
there! Does "hypoxic" mean anything to you? When science (or
scientists) loose touch with with the realities of humanity
hypoxia sets in. The mind starts to drift, the vision fogs and
before you know it, you just about convince yourself that you
are right and the whole rest of the world is wrong.

>> I know that its a big word but I used it in the intended
>> mode and most usual meaning. In that response, I see a lot
>> of attempted "logic" as to why this cited example,
>> documented in print, picture and videotape is not
>> applicable, and some interesting diversions from the basic
>> question (which we will deal with in due time! 8-) )
>
> Per exemplar, bob, as to why you would have difficulty in
> advanced study.
>

Although some would disagree with that statement I would agree
wholeheartedly. LEARNING is hard, memorizing is easy, of
course some would say that learning has very little to do with
facts and more to do with thinking. Thinking I can usually
manage, after all I dont just salute every flag that you
happen to raise up the flagpole, even if at times I do give
the devil his due. Perhaps LEARNING is one of those things
that rarely gets taught in school. Perhaps there is something
in there to learning that goes beyond spouting back facts and
algorithms and theories. but then thats just the rumor from
around the storm drain. . . . . . . 8-)

>> And since he chose to reply to this, I could but do him the
>> honor of a reply in kind!
>
> Uhmmmmm, You reply to about half of my post I never
> responded to you with.

Yeah, but you are my hero! So important and intelligent and
educated and smart and . . . . .well just plain PERFECT!
Geewhillikers, when I flop over dead in my bed I will be able
to be JUST LIKE YOU! Feel nothing, care about nothing, not
even hear any criticism or ANYTHING! I'll be above (or some
might say below!) all of that kind of humanistic pond scum
called humanity! Goooooooollllly there Doc Deitiker, I'll be
good at it dont you think!

ROTFLMAO!!!! all caps and explaination points on purpose!

>> Does this mean that the benefits and logic of money went
>> along with the altruistic motives of a politician? Not to
>> smear Sen. Hatch, but he IS a politician. Not sure what the
>> revelation is in your assertion.
>
> The revelation is that fundies are fundies up to the point
> in which their $s are affected, then they would f_ck over
> their religion 7 times to next tuesday. Its a charade, more
> or less a hobby or political diversion of the masses.
> Hobbies can be bylined when livelihood is at stake.
> Fundementalist are fundementalist when it suits them
> otherwise their fundemental 'values' mean nothing. Remember
> they ole saying 'before the rooster crows 3 times you will
> rebuke me'.

Now there you go calling someone a hypocrit or something
equally unsavory. yep a quick way to win friends and influence
people Id say. And the benefit to science of that little
mini-diatribe was. . . . actually what was the benefit to
ANYBODY or anything? what measure of GOOD did you achieve?

>
>>> In 1940s Baylor University Medical (as in bible thumping
>>> Baylor, Home of the "nations oldest virgins" and highest
>>> freshman pregnancy rate), moved from its home in Dallas to
>>> a subdivided cattle ranch along Braes Bayou in houston.
>>>
>> Being an institute in Houston, I would be forced to assume
>> that there might be some connection between that first
>> notworthy apellation and Dr. Deitiker's swave and
>> engratiating southern demeanor and eloquent persuasive
>> skills! As for the later item of notoriety, must be the
>> rebound effect! And "smooch" is not exactly the verb I
>> would suggest.
>
> I ain't from east Texas, if that is what you are saying.
> Just like the fundies I had to make a few sacrifices to get
> a job once upon I also had to make a few sacrifices, moving
> east was one of them.

But just a few sentences you were condemning the "fundies" for
doing a good thing for money, sort of as if they were not
being true to their inner selves or something. Hummmmmm m m m
m m mm. Im confuzed there Mr. Deitiker sir. How is it that the
actions of one are undeniably damning and in your case its
just a passing trivial issue. . . . . . Guess thats why you
are my hero, the rules just dont apply the same way to you
right? Superman can fly in spite of gravity and you can rebuke
others in spite of anything! Thats what makes you, you;

Snippage. . . . .
>
>> Looks like more rationalization as to why things happened
>> the way they did with Sen. Hatch, and why they could NEVER,
>> EVER conceiveably happen that same way in the fields of
>> Anthropology and genetics. Makes me feel like I was back in
>> elementry school where "the dog ate it" was the epitome of
>> excuses! At least it doesnt take so many words to express
>> and its a bit less embarassing.
>
> BTW, I generally like Orin Hatch, he is better than the
> average Repub, IMHO. And I, in general, think that Mormoms
> are more responsible citizens than the exenslaver southern
> version of bible thumpers who can't get over the guilt trip
> of the skeletons in their closets so they transfer this
> guilt into psuedo-morality.
>

Well that explains it all! You LIKE Orin Hatch so his action
could not POSSIBLY mean that the people you hate could take
similar actions IF they were not insulted, ridiculed and
incited to new levels of distrust by your rants! Sounds a
bit like one of those "entries" to a self-fullfilling
prophesy Id say! "Fundies" never change, Hatch changed,
therefor he could not have been a "fundie" and therefore it
doesnt matter if we insult those fundie churchgoeres up one
wall and down the other as long as we sound knowledgable,
important and appropriately aloof. PLEASE, find some way to
switch it over to "The dog ate it!" the sophistication of
the logic would be much more satisfying and dogs dont really
get insulted that way.

>> At the risk of being repetitious, . . . . . and I quote. .
>> . . . .
>>
>> " Now Philip, my man, I must ask again, what purpose does
>> all of the hate and invective against religious
>> conservatives (or any other group that might disagree with
>> you!) serve?
>

Could you PLEASE take the below and somehow set of with carets
or something the section that answers the question above? Im
really having trouble finding the answer below. I promise, I
did NOT cut out anything here! The question has nothing to do
whatsoever with what I do, or with what Tom Delay does or
anything other than what YOU do. If I wanted to find out about
Delay's actions I would check the news or ask him, Im asking
you about your own motives, and there must be motives to it.
Logic says that there must be a motive behind every sane
action and as a scientist you must understand logic right? So
WHERE is the answer?

> Pluralistic society. But if the ignorant conservatives like
> Tom Delay and his contingent in congress would control the
> outflow from their digestive system, I might be inclined to
> follow. Delay is not an artifact of our political system he
> is a product of the political mind of certain americans,
> americans who never take the time to think beyond their
> blind faith. Scientist never speak up, this kind ot thing is
> below them, but if they could what would you hear? Don't
> like the sound of it, but it is the truth.
>
> You know this is just like the question that Isreali's pose,
> 'why are they suiciding themselves against our citizens? We
> are a democratic society!'
>
> If you remove the fact that they are involved in a 40 year
> occupation its a completely legitimate question to ask. But
> the fact that they are occupying another people means that
> the occupied people do not have democratic representation,
> they in turn our exersizing their authority in a way the
> democracy was designed to prevent. See Isreal is a
> neccesitatively restricted ethnically defined
> quasi-democracy and they do not see it as flawed system,
> because they cannot see the flaw in the system they cannot
> solve their problem. Because they cannot solve it, it
> neccesarily expands into new venues, suicide bombings are
> the latest, but as Isreali's find ways to stop this it will
> still move on. You cannot fight your own oppresiveness with
> more oppression againts resistance, you will only make the
> resistence stronger, and more resilient to your oppression.
> At some point the source of the oppression collapses into
> itself. US has avoided this because we have one element the
> Isreali's lack, we have as close as it gets to a Plurality
> of voice.
>
> It is the same thing bob. You ask why scientist are
> obnoxious, citizenry are not obnoxious to scientist. But the
> fact is that certain citizens of this land use any means,
> legal or illegal (democratic or subvertive) to get their way
> and sometimes their way is obnoxious to scientist. Sometimes
> the intent is 'good' but often it is a blind attempt to
> subvert science. Democracy was designed to prevent such
> incursions, but guess what we also have in our constition in
> the bill of rights, within freedom of speech for folks to
> obstruct, subvert, etc. We have within the constition the
> right to bear arms, and so guns are used frequently when
> political means fail (when have scientist gone out and shot
> abortion protestors). So why are sometimes such kind of
> people treated with disrepect, because they don't deserve
> any better. The ignorant right was in this land along time
> before science was, this is not sciences baby.
>

This is the closest Ive come to an answer. Again it sounds
like a 2nd grade answer that one might toss out when "the dog
ate it" just dont fit. Like for example, Tommy, why did you
punch Jonny in the nose, well teach, I did it cause he stuck
his tongue out at me! A very mature and concisely logical
arguement its not, but if you cant give me a better one am I
supposed to imagine that a trained scientist has the social
and emotional maturity of little Tommy? If so Id say that we
have a new case for the Gilmore syndrome. Gilmore was a fellow
that graduated from college and was rumored to be unable to
read. Of course he could put his "X" on his paychecks from the
NBA. Are you well educated in the details of science and so
uneducated in the art of humanity that you have to resort to
name calling and insult when someone disagrees? Great on the
scientific slam dunk but lacking in humanistic literacy? Might
be a pretty sad legacy!

Actually I stilldoubt that scenario. That is why I asked
the basic question of "what benefit"? WOuld you honor me
with an answer?

snippage. . . .

>
>> What "benefit" do you or the world of science gain by
>> insulting honest, well-meaning people, geneticists or
>> churchgoers, who just dont happen to agree with you?
>
> Scientist can take the heat, and the churchgoers should be
> able to, it is their contingent that puts the heat on
> scientist. One thing I have learned, if the wheel don't
> squeek real loud, it don't get greesed. That is why the
> fundies generally have their way, they got lots more time
> than scientist to go around squeeking, honey.
>

But SQUEAKING is not the same as brazenly standing up and
calling your opponent, and anyone who would dare to associate
with or god forbid defend that poor person, a complete fool,
now is it? And "squeaking" in your context above would
probably mean influencing people to your way of view. How do
you do that when ever other word is a carefully aimed fully
intentional insult?

Hmmmmmmm. . . . . makes me wonder what you really ARE trying
to achieve.

>> Perhaps just as much as the over-enthusiastic, pumped up
>> and ranting evangelical minister who might say that all who
>> believe in Darwin are damned?
>
> Yes there are thousands of them, but where is the call of
> the scientist, if you could hear his stomach grumble what
> would it sound like. You know what the grumbling of the
> deceived masses sounds like, they got lots of free time to
> tell you.
>
>> Gains no converts to the cause, hardens the hearts of the
>> opposition, and generally insults those that disagree while
>> also embarassing those that might otherwise support the
>> proposition. "
>
> There is no advocate for science in this country, my boy,
> except $s. When people cut science, someone in some industry
> points out that hey, this activity has been a source of $s
> and they restore
> it. Science should be its own advocate, but it spends so
> much time in those Ivory Towers trying to find better
> ways to unclog your fat-choked arteries that it has
> little time for other activities. Its the mothers of
> post adolescent kids who, mindfully staying at home and
> going to church twice a day, they have the time for
> political advocacy, but what do they advocate. You do
> not see scientist going to the job sites or homes who
> support 'absolutist' animal rights threatening to open
> their faucets or turn on all their lights, turn the AC
> down to 5'C, or open the natural gas valve. We don't do
> these things cause we have no time. Nor do you see
> scientist standing in the middle of freeways with
> pictures of Newt Gingrich Screwing his Aide, or Standing
> in front of the Homes of Abortion protestors chaining
> themselves to peoples trees or garage doors and stuff.
> Nor do you see scientist going to the churches and
> defecating on thier doorsteps, nor protesting in front
> of them.
>
> You don't see scientist doing any of these things, it is not
> our nature.

ROTFLMAO Again! Whats the matter there Phil ole boy, afraid to
get your hands dirty? Afraid to spend as much time and effort
defending your PROFESSION as I end up spending trying to
defend my HOBBY? guess I just have a really screwed up set of
values. I dont like to see science get a black eye because of
your diatribes on the flames and eternal damnation that we are
facing if people go to church (or for those like me for
example that dont even go to church, but still happen to
disagree with your devine and exclusive right to truth!) .
Snippage. . . . . . . .

>
>> Why are you dodging the basic question as posed and
>> offering up a story about the mating habits of the Baylor
>> coed class and heart surgery?
>
> Cause it is something you might understand as opposed to
> direct answers that you seem not to.

OK, lets get really, REALLY basic! Do your diatribes serve the
purpose of science? a) YES b)NO If yes, how? If no, what
purpose do they serve?

We might have problems with the second part of the question
but I REALLY want to hear the first part. Even I can usually
manage single sylables. 8-)

>
>> Are the words too big or too phlebian? If so, just tell me
>> which and I will correct it in either direction! 8-)
>
> Scientist don't have time. We are on very restricitve
> budgets and deadlines, we don't have time to get our boobs
> lifted and hair died, eyes recolored, and facials (and trust
> me some scientinst definitely need them). We don't have time
> to waste harassing other people in malicious kinds of ways.
> One kind of hopes forums like this would be a protective
> bastion for hobbies of the scientific mind, but alas the
> fruitloops and holey rollers manage to cram themselves in
> here as a means of disrupting this. You either like what
> people say here or you don't. If you don't like the way I
> talk to people, 'killfile' me, please. Anyone who doesn't
> like what I say or the way I say it, do the same to me as I
> would do to you. I don't have the time for you, and since
> you don't like what I say you shouldn't have the time for
> me.
>

8-)

> Because of people like yourself, other forums, like
> PaleoAnthro had to be created so that interested people had
> a cleaned up environment to interact, and wow, guess what,
> you and some others find their way over their and guess what
> we see the insertion of alot of trivial, useless posting
> going on. I am not saying that everything you post is caga,
> but you should take some time to study out this stuff before
> you jump in. We did, at one time, have a decent discussion
> over Primate LCAs in which you did insert some interesting
> commentary. You need to do more of this and less of the
> Ivory Tower stuff.
>

But you see, I KNOW I could not contribute as much in the way
of hard science as you or Gisele. I just plain dont have the
knowledge, and as you have very pointedly described for those
of us without the native intelect, well its hard if not
impossible to get past the "start" box. But I try anyway.
Guess Im lucky that you are not moderator over there, huh?
Corse'n iffen you were I probably wouldnt wanna be thar
anyway, bro.

snip. . . .
>
> Bob, ask yourself the question, what are you here for?

I am absolute hobbist in the realm of anthropology. Never had
the first class, totally self-taught in whatever insignificant
bits of trivia I might know or imagine. Wont ever make $0.01
from the science. My only tangible contribution is that for
years I ran tours up to an indian rock art site in the middle
of a bombing range! Thankfully live ordnance keeps out
vandals! 8-) My job was far more to make sure that the
tourists didnt encounter any of that live ordnance, local
wildlife or deface the art than anything associated with
anthropology. Of course that trip each week was a bit of time
that I found to devote to something that I did enjoy, so even
when it was 110 in the shade, it didnt bother me that much.

Your hateful diatribes, under the guise of a science that I do
have a deep appreciation if not understanding of feels like a
personal insult. Moreso when you make it so of course, but
that is a different story.

> I am an evolutionary biochemist, part of my study is analyze
> the flow of disease genes in the human population, I want
> answers to evolutionary questions, or pointers on new
> potential information. Since I am not a paleoanthrologist
> and since what they generally proport is highly error prone,
> this and a few other groups are 'as good as' these types of
> forums get on pointing new papers and discussing them.
> Despite the 'riff-raff' this group is occasionally
> productive and thus I continue here. I know what my
> justification is for being here is [aside from the fact that
> when this group came into existence I was asked to and
> reluctantly joined because the Sci. people wanted more
> professionals involved]
>

Why? Why would "professionals" be wanted? Could it be that
professionals can insult or rant or spew invective and hate
better? I think not. Somewhere along the way though it would
seem that the professional SCIENCE has slipped to the back
burner in favor of a simple podium for preaching predjudice,
pandering an opiate of bigotry and insult. WHere is the
professional scientist in that? What is the benefit?

> What is your justification for what you post?

To "change the world", isnt that yours aw well? 8-)

> Does it involve Science and Paleo and Anthropology?
> Remotely? Coincidentally? Occasionally? Infrequently?
> Rarely?

Recently. . . .sometimes. Other than the fact that Id very
much like to paint a more human face on science and anthro in
particular, Im probably one of those totally worthless
dilitantes that you would much prefer to insult long enough
and strong enough so as to make them go away. Luckily Im
either too stupid to take the hint, too stuborn to care, or
simply just dont believe that you own the newsgroup! Maybe
even all three, but its sometimes hard to see the devine light
of truth, justice and the Deitiker way from so low in the
gutter! 8-)

Wasted enough bandwidth on my windmill for this day!

See ya big guy!

bk

[Philip Dei]

On Thu, 09 May 2002 00:07:50 GMT, Bob Keeter
<rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote:

>Perhaps you are, perhaps you arent. But since this IS a
>scientifically oriented newsgroup generally along the lines
>of anthropology, which DOES in one way or another relate to
>human behavior, lets exercise some scientific methodology on
>that "de-encryption stuff", eh?

>We will give you a quick test!
>
>Multiple choice test!
>
>Q: Why is D3 (in the world with R2D2 and C3PO, We can
> certainly let Dear
>Dr. Deitiker be D3, you can even refer to me as A2S or
> something similar, but I'll leave that to you!)

H2S (hydrogen sulfide) theoretically like water but smells
like shit. D20 [Me] behaves like water, but if your not
careful it will blow your shit to kingdom come.

Q: Why does Bob continue to post OFF-TOPIC stuff here and
flood the NewsGroup with utter nonsense.

>Why is D3 so inherently superior, in his own eyes and
>apparently in yours, to anyone who happens to disagree with
>him or even question his divinations?

>Now for the possible answers. . . . . . . . . .
>
>a.) He is GOD and an angry, dissatisfied, insecure and
> threatened god at that.

Possibly true, but I haven't died yet, so theres no way to
know. After I die I will let you know. Booooooooooooo. God is
a fabrication of the human spirit. It would be akin to asking
whether I share genetic similarity with Madagascarans.

>b.) He really does not have any emotion, compassion, or
> concern for his fellow man, of course he has yet to find
> his "fellow man", so whats the problem?!?!

Compassion goes out for those that deserve it. Do you deserve
it? Lets take a poll, here, does bob deserve compassion for
all his musical postings?

>c.) Its the result of post-traumatic syndrome from the days
> spent chasing those middle-aged freshmen only to find that
> with the right inspiration even they could keep two or
> three steps ahead of him.

Middle-age who? Buddy, I went from college about the time
Reagan was calling the soviet union an evil empire. I
graduated about the time he had his last cohesively good
thought about empires.
Q.a. when his cheif of staff and Nancy stepped in an began
running the gov't.

>d.) It makes him feel powerful to pretend to pass judgement
> and exact punishment. (yep some people really do get their
> yuks with that kind of thing, some pretty famous ones too!
> Even a French nobleman of some ill repute!)

Possibly. Off with their heads and let them eat cake.

>e.) He uses it as an excuse for disagreements, sort of a
> self-imposed "screen" that explains everything in terms of
> someone's vendetta and their personal ignorance instead of
> ANYTHING that he could possibly be doing. Sort of an
> inverse inferiority complex if you will.

Possibly, bend over, I feel my complex coming again, honey.

>f.) He just LOVES (kissy-kissy!) the attention that it
> brings. (guess I could imagine a few other ways to gain
> that moment of fame.)

Possibly. I sure get alot of it from you, honey, so it must
be working.

R.) He uses it to seperate the intellectual chaff from
the wheat.

S.) Hes to pull people's chain to see what makes them tick. He
pulled Bob's chain and the whole damn clock fell to pieces.
Haven't figured out the putting people back together again
once they have self distructed. Maybe when He dies and
become god He'll get the 'reducing a man to ashes and
bringing him back again thing right'.

>If you notice, not a single one of them includes anything
>whatsoever about contributing to the good of science, the
>good of society or anything even remotely close to that.

let me put it like the this, Bob, honey, if there was
something positive, you wouldn't see it, now would you because
you are infatuated with girgling up this meta stuff, darling.
So much so when important tidbits of data fly by you miss the
opportunity to snag them. This is the true encryption of the
Usenet. Me and someone else can be having a discussion, and
you have no idea what we are talking about because you get all
tripped up by the secret code, ba-hah-haha ha.

What is the saying about the seeds falling on the path, some
fall here and there, but only a few grow. Pearls that have
landed your direction get trampled, so be it.

> I keep asking him why, and all I get is evasion,
> diversion, long-winded dissertations on the weather,
> politics, economics and the salinity of the dead sea, but
> not one answer.

Answer

> If you can find one, and obviously you must, please share,
> otherwise I see his grand act as a great disservice to the
> science that he professses to support, a waste of his
> expetise, training and intelligence!

ROFLMAO, as opposed to your unending pollution of the UseNet.
The difference between me and you bob is that you contribute
nothing with all this Meta discussion and I contribute
information and Meta. Somewhere along the line your wee-wittle
feelings got hurt and so you have continued this on.

I make a deal with you, if you stop all the Meta crap and
everyone here stops all the meta stuff, then I will also stop.
You may notice the my Meta -mouth is in direct response to the
other Meta discussion here. The logic of this is that maybe if
someone makes a fart that is so smelly one cannot be avoided
that everyone else will stop farting.

Lets have a set of ground rules.

1. No-one mentions religion or creation, or quasicreation, or
creationism or creative design or any of these cryptically
religiously inspired arguments.

2. No-one mentions evolution other than evolution of
primates. This is to include when the first life form
appeared and who did or did not create
it.

3. No-one mentions Kansas and Board of education. Or any
other decision of any court on evolution teaching.

4. No-one mention racial supremacy or make racially
supremist arguments. No regional theories of evolution
that are cryptocreationist or cryptoracist theories. No
calling anyone a creationist of cryptocreationist, or
posting responses from professionals such as CL Brace or
Trinkaus that are deroggatory to others in the feild
along those lines.

5. Noone bashes people over the head with unrefereed
literature. Noone start a thread 'well my professor in
undergrad said . . . . therefore you are wrong'.

6. Noone bash people over the head with obscure literature,
or singular papers that deviate from the conclusions of
everyone else.

7. Noone post trivialities like: "Well, we'll miss . . . .
. . . . . you can join us from time to time."

8. Noone start threads like this one and:
9. Brewer's yeast and human genetics! (you)
10. The Ivory Tower Legacy . . . . . . . (you)
11. would you be so kind , mr. keeter....... (Ej in
response to your emial harassments.
12. fashionable heights (EJ)
13. The Ivory Tower Legacy . . . . Interesting event! (you)

[Have you noticed Bob that all the decidedly off-topic stuff
come from a few select people. I tried my doggest to find one
from ANNE, but even ANNE has refrained from posting off-topic
and meta discussions here, lately, I could only hope she also
does so in other forums. Of the offtopic discussions I have on
my browser, YOU [pointing finger while shaking vigorously like
Ariel Sharon] are the instigator of 80%. You may notice that
while I strongly disagree with Liefs tactics of posting, his
threads are not on the list. I could go about harassing him as
much as I do you, but as long as he remains on topic, He is
not going to get the biggest shake of my stick. Rules 7 and 8
are biggies for me. Nothing pisses me off more than off topic
threads created for the purpose of distracting the activities
of the group or ad hominim attacks.]

14. Noone use profanities. Ad-hominim attacks. The proper
response to misconduct is to killfile that individual.
You can leave a thread, like this one by posting. I am
sorry for your current behavior and you are now in my
Kill-file.

15. Everyone respects everyones opinion or interpretation of
the data, no hit and run attacks. No attacks on people
simply because they are not professional scientist, _if_
that individual is struggling to understand the science.
Contrarily noone disregards a major theory without
investing some time to study that theory or set of
results. Critiques of aspects are fine, but unless you can
find a major flaw and support it with statistics of some
kind . . .

16. No posting of flame bait (bobby) even muses or disguised
as innocent rhetorica questions.

17. No throwing out of red herrings (lief and John).

18. Behave professionally. If you do not know how scientist
behave, behave conservatively. Do not run into the group
with latest idea you have about little green men, or
magrove hopping monkeys or other stuff in which the proof
is elusive or highly improbable. Also do not ramble in a
'foriegn' english using ALLCAPS and !!!!!! and then finish
of with 8-). Don't use smiley faces as a means of
justifying really off-topic or disorganized postings,
insults, whatever. For anyone who has been on the Usenet
for more that a few years, smiley faces mean nothing. Do
not get mad when your little five year old gets his ass
beat up because hes trying to ride someone elses adult
touring-bike.

19. Don't pretend that after you have flame baited an argument
that you were innocent and scream bloody murder when the
hounds run up your behind.

20. Everyone should _try_ to at least read 20 primary
literature papers before they begin posting stuff in this
group (since the files and PaleoAnthro now have about 20
papers, they are relatively easy to get). By trying I mean
read every word and study every figure, even if you do not
understand or grapple every word, try is the key word.
Anyone who tries will eventually get it, anyone who
doesn't try is not worth talking to.

21. Everyone here agrees to buy a modern browser with a
killfile ability. People who repeatedly violate these
rules should be killfiled by everyone so that their
postings and threads are ignored. We can create a
thread every month called Killfile so that everyone can
list the contents of their killfile, so that newbies
know who to add.

> And that is sad.

Because Bobby got his feelings hurt when he said something
stupid. Get over it.

>In fact, that is far more of an insult to his science than
>any stupid question or inane answer that the dullest of
>villiage idiots

dull you aren't, unwilling to challenge yourself, that is a
different thing. Take the time you spend creating Meta
discussion and try to be a 'work in progress' instead of a
'heal in progress'. Personally I think you are afraid, afraid
that if you committed yourself to a scientific study you might
begin to see the world as D20 does and then all those ties
that bind you to your 'traditions' will need to be severed. I
can give you an example of a friend of mine, nice guy, but he
lived his early adulthood fixed to what his mommy and daddy
believed, and tried to be everything they wanted and what he
wanted, also, a scientist. What he found was he could not put
new wine in old skins. By the time he had cut the strings he
found himself virtually in the gutter, both dreams shattered,
from then to now he has slowly dragged himself and his family
out. He will never live up to his goals, but he might just
acheive something better, being integrity of a process like th
apostle Paul. There is a saying that you cannot worship two
gods, if your god is orthodoxifying belief then stick with it,
but if your god is science any orthodoxifying belief you have
will trip you up.

>, myself included of course, could ever perpetrate.

Can you hear my very tiny violin playing for you Bob. It is
certainly true that there are resources here and that other
members of this group have exploited them. But you cannot
fathom this because as I said its all over your head. You may
have posed as a knowledgable person way back when you were
escorting middle aged women in floopy hats and big sunglasses
to old Indian ruins, but you seem to have not got wind under
your sails on this lake.

You may find if you search the Usenet history that the amount
of flame a person gets from me is proportional to the degree
of OFF-TOPIC posting they engage in, up to the point I
killfile them. Try as you may this will not change, at least
until you change. Even so I have refrained from flaming EJ and
ANNE because I know that they don't mean harm by these posts,
even though these posts are a source of irritation in the
group as it has grown. OTOH I percieve based upon your posting
and response patterns that you do mean harm, therefore I will
continue to fire volleys your way; however, given the fact
that you are still in your McGinnian Death Spiral, I am going
to port you back into my kill file. Bye-bye honey.

BTW. One other thing, as per you have had no luck combating
myself in your long winded attempt to associate myself with
'distructive' science, now you have taken to attackin EJ
publically as opposed to privately. This backdoor approach of
yours will also fail, honey. Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Kcom]

On Thu, 09 May 2002 12:09:02 -0500, Philip Deitiker
<pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:

>
>Lets have a set of ground rules.
>
> 1. No-one mentions religion or creation, or quasicreation,
> or creationism or creative design or any of these
> cryptically religiously inspired arguments.
>
> 2. No-one mentions evolution other than evolution of
> primates. This is to include when the first life form
> appeared and who did or did not create
>it.
>
>
> 5. Noone bashes people over the head with unrefereed
> literature. Noone start a thread 'well my professor in
> undergrad said . . . . therefore you are wrong'.
>

> 6. Noone bash people over the head with obscure
> literature, or singular papers that deviate from the
> conclusions of everyone else.
>
> 7. Noone post trivialities like: "Well, we'll miss . . . .
> . . . . . you can join us from time to time."
>
> 8. Noone start threads like this one and:
> 1. Brewer's yeast and human genetics! (you)
> 2. The Ivory Tower Legacy . . . . . . . (you)
> 3. would you be so kind , mr. keeter....... (Ej in
> response to your emial harassments.
> 4. fashionable heights (EJ)
> 5. The Ivory Tower Legacy . . . . Interesting event! (you)
>
>[Have you noticed Bob that all the decidedly off-topic stuff
>come from a few select people. I tried my doggest to find one
>from ANNE, but even ANNE has refrained from posting off-topic
>and meta discussions here, lately, I could only hope she also
>does so in other forums. Of the offtopic discussions I have
>on my browser, YOU [pointing finger while shaking vigorously
>like Ariel Sharon] are the instigator of 80%. You may notice
>that while I strongly disagree with Liefs tactics of posting,
>his threads are not on the list. I could go about harassing
>him as much as I do you, but as long as he remains on topic,
>He is not going to get the biggest shake of my stick. Rules 7
>and 8 are biggies for me. Nothing pisses me off more than off
>topic threads created for the purpose of distracting the
>activities of the group or ad hominim attacks.]
>
> 9. Noone use profanities. Ad-hominim attacks. The proper
> response to misconduct is to killfile that individual.
> You can leave a thread, like this one by posting. I am
> sorry for your current behavior and you are now in my
> Kill-file.
>
>10. Everyone respects everyones opinion or interpretation of
> the data, no hit and run attacks. No attacks on people
> simply because they are not professional scientist, _if_
> that individual is struggling to understand the science.
> Contrarily noone disregards a major theory without
> investing some time to study that theory or set of
> results. Critiques of aspects are fine, but unless you
> can find a major flaw and support it with statistics of
> some kind . . .
>
>11. No posting of flame bait (bobby) even muses or disguised
> as innocent rhetorica questions.
>
>12. No throwing out of red herrings (lief and John).
>
>13. Behave professionally. If you do not know how scientist
> behave, behave conservatively. Do not run into the group
> with latest idea you have about little green men, or
> magrove hopping monkeys or other stuff in which the proof
> is elusive or highly improbable. Also do not ramble in a
> 'foriegn' english using ALLCAPS and !!!!!! and then
> finish of with 8-). Don't use smiley faces as a means of
> justifying really off-topic or disorganized postings,
> insults, whatever. For anyone who has been on the Usenet
> for more that a few years, smiley faces mean nothing. Do
> not get mad when your little five year old gets his ass
> beat up because hes trying to ride someone elses adult
> touring-bike.
>
>14. Don't pretend that after you have flame baited an
> argument that you were innocent and scream bloody murder
> when the hounds run up your behind.
>
>15. Everyone should _try_ to at least read 20 primary
> literature papers before they begin posting stuff in this
> group (since the files and PaleoAnthro now have about 20
> papers, they are relatively easy to get). By trying I
> mean read every word and study every figure, even if you
> do not understand or grapple every word, try is the key
> word. Anyone who tries will eventually get it, anyone who
> doesn't try is not worth talking to.
>
>16. Everyone here agrees to buy a modern browser with a
> killfile ability. People who repeatedly violate these
> rules should be killfiled by everyone so that their
> postings and threads are ignored. We can create a thread
> every month called Killfile so that everyone can list
> the contents of their killfile, so that newbies know who
> to add.
>
>> And that is sad.
>
>Because Bobby got his feelings hurt when he said something
>stupid. Get over it.
>
>>In fact, that is far more of an insult to his science than
>>any stupid question or inane answer that the dullest of
>>villiage idiots
>
>dull you aren't, unwilling to challenge yourself, that is a
>different thing. Take the time you spend creating Meta
>discussion and try to be a 'work in progress' instead of a
>'heal in progress'. Personally I think you are afraid, afraid
>that if you committed yourself to a scientific study you
>might begin to see the world as D20 does and then all those
>ties that bind you to your 'traditions' will need to be
>severed. I can give you an example of a friend of mine, nice
>guy, but he lived his early adulthood fixed to what his mommy
>and daddy believed, and tried to be everything they wanted
>and what he wanted, also, a scientist. What he found was he
>could not put new wine in old skins. By the time he had cut
>the strings he found himself virtually in the gutter, both
>dreams shattered, from then to now he has slowly dragged
>himself and his family out. He will never live up to his
>goals, but he might just acheive something better, being
>integrity of a process like th apostle Paul. There is a
>saying that you cannot worship two gods, if your god is
>orthodoxifying belief then stick with it, but if your god is
>science any orthodoxifying belief you have will trip you up.
>
>>, myself included of course, could ever perpetrate.
>
>Can you hear my very tiny violin playing for you Bob. It is
>certainly true that there are resources here and that other
>members of this group have exploited them. But you cannot
>fathom this because as I said its all over your head. You may
>have posed as a knowledgable person way back when you were
>escorting middle aged women in floopy hats and big sunglasses
>to old Indian ruins, but you seem to have not got wind under
>your sails on this lake.
>
>You may find if you search the Usenet history that the amount
>of flame a person gets from me is proportional to the degree
>of OFF-TOPIC posting they engage in, up to the point I
>killfile them. Try as you may this will not change, at least
>until you change. Even so I have refrained from flaming EJ
>and ANNE because I know that they don't mean harm by these
>posts, even though these posts are a source of irritation in
>the group as it has grown. OTOH I percieve based upon your
>posting and response patterns that you do mean harm,
>therefore I will continue to fire volleys your way; however,
>given the fact that you are still in your McGinnian Death
>Spiral, I am going to port you back into my kill file.
>Bye-bye honey.
>

Hey Scotty, I don't think this guy knows Bob and you very
well does he?
--

Steve

[Philip Dei]

On Fri, 10 May 2002 21:08:10 +0200,
musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de (mb) wrote:

>This astonishing coincidence makes me wonder how you've found
>this 283 mutations - it looks like a simple interpolation
>based on Horai's substitution rate.

There are several methodologies, the reason I selected lHV1
and actually to be fair there is a 30 bp region around 16325
which should also be exclcuded because it evolves slowly. I
did not want to bias my determination by regions evolving at 2
different rates, the first 125 residues are eliminated, some
reason to believe that it is evolving at a slightly different
rate in chimps and humans, secondarily many studies did not
sequence this region, so cross studies analysis are difficult.
I could have extended the region to 16425, but this region
while hypervariable is not often sequenced either. My analysis
is completely independent of both Vigilante and Horai. I did
not make any assumptions that they have made. Vigilante used a
15:1 transition to transversion ratio based on primate
studies. I created my own based on chimp and gorilla. The
result was 11.3:1.

>Then you were talking about transition fades and transversion
>fades, about the transition/transversion rate you found to be
>wrong but no have corrected to 19.3 followed by something
>which should account for error estimations and so on. All
>this is particular hazy in so far as it does not clearify how
>this contributed to your calculation of the ME value, beside
>it seems that some lines in this paragraph are missing.

Transitions can undergo reverse mutations or parallel
mutations, Vigilante et al simply counted the transversions
and used the 15:1 ratio to count transitions. The problem was
in creating parsimony within in chimps and gorillas I found
that transversions also fade. I tried to compensate for this
also. As it turns out, when you take a 11.3:1 ratio and
correct it by estimating the transversion fade over 10 million
year path link, you get a 15:1 ration back. I don't know
whether Vigilante knew this or whether they even bothered to
consider this, but this is why our results are kind of
similar. Vigilant had 26 transversions over HV2 and HV1 while
I had 19 over the limit part of HV1, therefore my lV1 is
evolving considerable faster than the HV2 and eliminatedHV1.
This is one reason I got a different result. And I figure you
are going to blast over about why HV2 and eHV1 are just as
good. The problem is there is no chimp data or gorilla data of
the degree of lHV1 by which I can estimate the t:t ratio, but
theoretically one could if one had a nice chimp/gorilla data
set, estimate the t:t ratio, determine the mutation rate and
apply these with lHV1 making adjustments. I just found fault
in the fact that these people where comparing apple+orange as
if it was an orange. So I did it my way. That I came up with a
similar answer probably should tell us something about the
mtDNA approach, because either we are all making mistakes or
the mtDNA coalescences we are getting reflect reality of the
evolution.

>And btw, I should point out that there are a number of papers
>dealing with the estimation of transition/transversion ratios
>in the hypervariable regions, and the variation of mutation
>rate within this sequences. The connection between these
>rates and their variability usually is described with Corbins
>gamma distribution parameter alpha who somehow seems to lurks
>behind the big fog of your excerpt though I don´t see how
>you've made use of this.

The distribution is generally used as a depost-facto
statistics, but people seldomly apply this as to condition
their confidence intervals, as they should. The chimpanzee and
gorilla database is deep enough whereby one can use parsimony
to estimate t:t ratios at different ME depth ranges in the
tree, and then extrapolate to ME to get a value. Estimating
reverse transversions and parallel transversion simply based
on humans is dangerous, given what is now obvious in the
16180-16184 region. Thus depending on what one has in the
16186-16190 positions (C or
T) may well determine the rate of transversions and reverse
transversions and is determinant whether one recognizes ME
between chimp and human as insertion/deletion events
(balanced) or transversions. As a result the depth of
chimpanzee and gorilla trees is probably a better choice
for looking for these things, even though the statistics
there get pretty rotten, and very rotten when gorillas
humungo deletion is entertained. The only way to solve the
problem is (that I saw) was to guestimate a confidence
interval and settle on a mutation rate.

>As for the transition/transversion rates in these papers, the
>best ML estimates are usually between 20 and 25, so your
>correction apparently isn't new.

>However, I´m miracling how you get this 283 segregation
>sites. If you could elaborate about the procedere applied...

19.3 transversions between chimp and human, used a
corrected(corrected t:t). Basically I applied my
t:t ration to the chimp:human and using gorilla as outgroup
DNA I compared the first result. I found my tree to be
unbalanced as a result of more depth information on chimp
than recently expanding humans (and Neadertal with obvious
reverse transversion event). Turned around looked for
transversion fade, found some, but it wasn't enough to
correct the problem, amkes sense because chimp tree did not
extend to the LCA. So transverion detected in chimpanzee
were not all of transversions. To make a long story short, I
solved for number of ME based on what information I had on
chimp and human in order to solve the descrepancy between
Gorilla/Chimp versus Human/Chimp (realizing the gorilla has
a humongous delection) since the base ussumption that
whatever concensus you generate should be equally similar to
gorilla. The critical point of the argument is that in the
solution one should also output a confidence, and apply that
to the result. Your t:t ratios aren't worth a crap when
visible t:t between two species is 2:1 since transversions
are also reverting by that time (or paralleling). In the
case of human/chimp the difference between the earliest
branch point in chimp (at a guestimated
2.5 to 3.75 million years is 6.5 to 8.0 million years
from the nearest hominid branch point. Thus one has to
have a statistic to deal with the fact you need to
correct transversions. I doubt very seriously the t:t
ration is 20 to
3:1, only if you are looking at using this as a emperical
guage for species 10-20 million years separated will the
result overlay with reality.

>> ...Undersampling is undersampling.
>
>but that was not the issue in your reply to J.W.

It is the major issue.

>I would say it is suggestive that this locus is suited well
>for the kind of analyses undertaken by the authors. If one
>investigates autosomal loci than he carefully picks those
>which are not obscured by recombination events.

But then you have to ask why.

>Interesting, which one have you compared with which chimp
>sequence?

Take a close look at the paper.

>If you make a pairwise comparison of sequences you usually
>calculate how likely the trees you obtained are. The result
>can be expressed in the P-value which in this case is in the
>range of e-11, and this makes their results reliable.

You can get a very nice P-value if you have used selectively
faulty logic to set up your analysis. One of the basic issues
in doing molecular studies is indicating the source of common
ancestry. In that paper the source of common ancestry of the
N.afr/Eurasian anscestry was not clear. (again I dont have the
paer in front of me at present) In almost every molecular
study the source can be narrowed down based on the amount of
diversity. But PDAH1 has tremendous depth of diversity, but
the ancestral point of origin of the alleles is not clear.
You cannot even say this mtDNA because of the fact that
exclusion of early alleles (and unfortunately failure to
properly survey africa) is the result of point of origin
'fixation' slow mutation times relative to the constriction
interval and the haploid state of mtDNA. I would have liked
to see whether that minor allele group had more ancestral
type sequences in africa, whether africa might have had more
diverse sequences not detected of that group or whether the
foci was in eurasia. I think, if I remember they had like 7
or 8 alleles of the exoafrican group. I don't think that is
sufficient given the way the human populations has
assymetrically expanded. What are we trying to distinguish
is important. We are trying to distinquish bleed through
variation of an implicitly regional constriction from depost
facto outgroup addition. The deferences between the two
sources of that variation are subtle, and it requires more
sequence information, IMHO, you can disaggree, I don't care,
you can argue this is not the authors motive, and again I
don't care. It reflects the new reality of the state of
early human evolution genetic studies at this moment, IMHO.

>BTW, I'm missing this part:
>
>>> I was not the only one to fault them on this.
>
>> Who else was it and where can I find his critique?

Takahata has made some critique about the treatment of the two
alleles; however, I don't agree with his critique. But notably
I think, I can't be sure of his motives, he thinks that some
sort of reverse duplication has gone on. He treated PDHA1 afr
versu exoafri separately

>concerning the time: Let us assume that the founding
>population has the often mentioned size of 10.000 inds and
>that the mutations take place at autosomal sites. These
>mutations could be either neutral or under natural selection.
>In the first case you'd be lost because the fixation of a
>single neutral allel would take about 800ky and hence already
>3 steps should last longer then the existence of H.erectus.

Yes I know that, but what you fail to realize, is that some
alleles are fixed, and it doesn't work exactly to 800,000
years because, my dear fellow the only requirement is that
mtDNA constriction last for that time at the other end of the
required haploid time the bottleneck can be entirely open
ended at point of entry, Therefore bleedthrough variants
could, potentially coalesce at any time in the past.

>So one have to conclude that the whole process is connected
>to an selectional advantage.

An assumption of the constriction size. False.

If we admit an moderate selection coefficient of
>.01 the fixation time for a single mutation shrinks to about
>40ky for a 10k ind population. Assuming a process which
>proceeds gradually - for some reasons I prefer 7 steps -
>this totals to 280ky or even if you allow the founder
>popSize to be between 3-4k inds, one of the lowest values
>seriously discussed, it would still be 250.000 years. And
>this is a very accomodating value if one takes into account
>that the time of speciation for mammalias usually is
>estimated at 500ky.

Keep it simple, you define the minimum lenght of the
constriction. that is about 130 ky. Then you see if the number
of autosomals fixed is greater than the number expected during
that time, they are. Therefore you confirm that constriction
of autosomals is consistent with haploids, everything else can
be bleed through unless otherwise patterns in the putative
bleed through alleles are such that they are scewed in a
particularly unexpected direction. PDHA1 may be an example so
let us be certain.

Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Ejudy]

The following posting seems to me one of the clearest
explanations and, IMHO, should be transfered to the
paleoanthro files or somewhere so it can be used as an easily
retrieved resource.

ejudy

Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote in article
<vqjoduo501h9vt2fbhp187lnff1rh1egb7@4ax.com> :
>On Fri, 10 May 2002 21:08:10 +0200,
>musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de (mb) wrote:
>
>
>>This astonishing coincidence makes me wonder how you've
>>found this 283 mutations - it looks like a simple
>>interpolation based on Horai's substitution rate.
>
>There are several methodologies, the reason I selected lHV1
>and actually to be fair there is a 30 bp region around 16325
>which should also be exclcuded because it evolves slowly. I
>did not want to bias my determination by regions evolving at
>2 different rates, the first 125 residues are eliminated,
>some reason to believe that it is evolving at a slightly
>different rate in chimps and humans, secondarily many studies
>did not sequence this region, so cross studies analysis are
>difficult. I could have extended the region to 16425, but
>this region while hypervariable is not often sequenced
>either. My analysis is completely independent of both
>Vigilante and Horai. I did not make any assumptions that they
>have made. Vigilante used a 15:1 transition to transversion
>ratio based on primate studies. I created my own based on
>chimp and gorilla. The result was 11.3:1.
>
>>Then you were talking about transition fades and
>>transversion fades, about the transition/transversion rate
>>you found to be wrong but no have corrected to 19.3 followed
>>by something which should account for error estimations and
>>so on. All this is particular hazy in so far as it does not
>>clearify how this contributed to your calculation of the ME
>>value, beside it seems that some lines in this paragraph are
>>missing.
>
>Transitions can undergo reverse mutations or parallel
>mutations, Vigilante et al simply counted the transversions
>and used the 15:1 ratio to count transitions. The problem was
>in creating parsimony within in chimps and gorillas I found
>that transversions also fade. I tried to compensate for this
>also. As it turns out, when you take a 11.3:1 ratio and
>correct it by estimating the transversion fade over 10
>million year path link, you get a 15:1 ration back. I don't
>know whether Vigilante knew this or whether they even
>bothered to consider this, but this is why our results are
>kind of similar. Vigilant had 26 transversions over HV2 and
>HV1 while I had 19 over the limit part of HV1, therefore my
>lV1 is evolving considerable faster than the HV2 and
>eliminatedHV1. This is one reason I got a different result.
>And I figure you are going to blast over about why HV2 and
>eHV1 are just as good. The problem is there is no chimp data
>or gorilla data of the degree of lHV1 by which I can estimate
>the t:t ratio, but theoretically one could if one had a nice
>chimp/gorilla data set, estimate the t:t ratio, determine the
>mutation rate and apply these with lHV1 making adjustments. I
>just found fault in the fact that these people where
>comparing apple+orange as if it was an orange. So I did it my
>way. That I came up with a similar answer probably should
>tell us something about the mtDNA approach, because either we
>are all making mistakes or the mtDNA coalescences we are
>getting reflect reality of the evolution.
>
>>And btw, I should point out that there are a number of
>>papers dealing with the estimation of
>>transition/transversion ratios in the hypervariable regions,
>>and the variation of mutation rate within this sequences.
>>The connection between these rates and their variability
>>usually is described with Corbins gamma distribution
>>parameter alpha who somehow seems to lurks behind the big
>>fog of your excerpt though I don´t see how you've made use
>>of this.
>
>The distribution is generally used as a depost-facto
>statistics, but people seldomly apply this as to condition
>their confidence intervals, as they should. The chimpanzee
>and gorilla database is deep enough whereby one can use
>parsimony to estimate t:t ratios at different ME depth ranges
>in the tree, and then extrapolate to ME to get a value.
>Estimating reverse transversions and parallel transversion
>simply based on humans is dangerous, given what is now
>obvious in the 16180-16184 region. Thus depending on what one
>has in the 16186-16190 positions (C or
>T) may well determine the rate of transversions and reverse
> transversions and is determinant whether one recognizes ME
> between chimp and human as insertion/deletion events
> (balanced) or transversions. As a result the depth of
> chimpanzee and gorilla trees is probably a better choice
> for looking for these things, even though the statistics
> there get pretty rotten, and very rotten when gorillas
> humungo deletion is entertained. The only way to solve the
> problem is (that I saw) was to guestimate a confidence
> interval and settle on a mutation rate.
>
>>As for the transition/transversion rates in these papers,
>>the best ML estimates are usually between 20 and 25, so your
>>correction apparently isn't new.
>
>>However, I´m miracling how you get this 283 segregation
>>sites. If you could elaborate about the procedere applied...
>
>19.3 transversions between chimp and human, used a
> corrected(corrected t:t). Basically I applied my
>t:t ration to the chimp:human and using gorilla as outgroup
> DNA I compared the first result. I found my tree to be
> unbalanced as a result of more depth information on chimp
> than recently expanding humans (and Neadertal with obvious
> reverse transversion event). Turned around looked for
> transversion fade, found some, but it wasn't enough to
> correct the problem, amkes sense because chimp tree did not
> extend to the LCA. So transverion detected in chimpanzee
> were not all of transversions. To make a long story short,
> I solved for number of ME based on what information I had
> on chimp and human in order to solve the descrepancy
> between Gorilla/Chimp versus Human/Chimp (realizing the
> gorilla has a humongous delection) since the base
> ussumption that whatever concensus you generate should be
> equally similar to gorilla. The critical point of the
> argument is that in the solution one should also output a
> confidence, and apply that to the result. Your t:t ratios
> aren't worth a crap when visible t:t between two species is
> 2:1 since transversions are also reverting by that time (or
> paralleling). In the case of human/chimp the difference
> between the earliest branch point in chimp (at a
> guestimated
> 2.5 to 3.75 million years is 6.5 to 8.0 million years
> from the nearest hominid branch point. Thus one has to
> have a statistic to deal with the fact you need to
> correct transversions. I doubt very seriously the t:t
> ration is 20 to
>24:1, only if you are looking at using this as a emperical
> guage for species 10-20 million years separated will the
> result overlay with reality.
>
>>> ...Undersampling is undersampling.
>>
>>but that was not the issue in your reply to J.W.
>
>It is the major issue.
>
>>I would say it is suggestive that this locus is suited well
>>for the kind of analyses undertaken by the authors. If one
>>investigates autosomal loci than he carefully picks those
>>which are not obscured by recombination events.
>
>But then you have to ask why.
>
>>Interesting, which one have you compared with which chimp
>>sequence?
>
>Take a close look at the paper.
>
>>If you make a pairwise comparison of sequences you usually
>>calculate how likely the trees you obtained are. The result
>>can be expressed in the P-value which in this case is in the
>>range of e-11, and this makes their results reliable.
>
>You can get a very nice P-value if you have used selectively
>faulty logic to set up your analysis. One of the basic issues
>in doing molecular studies is indicating the source of common
>ancestry. In that paper the source of common ancestry of the
>N.afr/Eurasian anscestry was not clear. (again I dont have
> the paer in front of me at present) In almost every
> molecular study the source can be narrowed down based on
> the amount of diversity. But PDAH1 has tremendous depth of
> diversity, but the ancestral point of origin of the alleles
> is not clear. You cannot even say this mtDNA because of the
> fact that exclusion of early alleles (and unfortunately
> failure to properly survey africa) is the result of point
> of origin 'fixation' slow mutation times relative to the
> constriction interval and the haploid state of mtDNA. I
> would have liked to see whether that minor allele group had
> more ancestral type sequences in africa, whether africa
> might have had more diverse sequences not detected of that
> group or whether the foci was in eurasia. I think, if I
> remember they had like 7 or 8 alleles of the exoafrican
> group. I don't think that is sufficient given the way the
> human populations has assymetrically expanded. What are we
> trying to distinguish is important. We are trying to
> distinquish bleed through variation of an implicitly
> regional constriction from depost facto outgroup addition.
> The deferences between the two sources of that variation
> are subtle, and it requires more sequence information,
> IMHO, you can disaggree, I don't care, you can argue this
> is not the authors motive, and again I don't care. It
> reflects the new reality of the state of early human
> evolution genetic studies at this moment, IMHO.
>
>
>>BTW, I'm missing this part:
>>
>>>> I was not the only one to fault them on this.
>>
>>> Who else was it and where can I find his critique?
>
>Takahata has made some critique about the treatment of the
>two alleles; however, I don't agree with his critique. But
>notably I think, I can't be sure of his motives, he thinks
>that some sort of reverse duplication has gone on. He treated
>PDHA1 afr versu exoafri separately
>
>>concerning the time: Let us assume that the founding
>>population has the often mentioned size of 10.000 inds and
>>that the mutations take place at autosomal sites. These
>>mutations could be either neutral or under natural
>>selection. In the first case you'd be lost because the
>>fixation of a single neutral allel would take about 800ky
>>and hence already 3 steps should last longer then the
>>existence of H.erectus.
>
>Yes I know that, but what you fail to realize, is that some
>alleles are fixed, and it doesn't work exactly to 800,000
>years because, my dear fellow the only requirement is that
>mtDNA constriction last for that time at the other end of the
>required haploid time the bottleneck can be entirely open
>ended at point of entry, Therefore bleedthrough variants
>could, potentially coalesce at any time in the past.
>
>>So one have to conclude that the whole process is connected
>>to an selectional advantage.
>
>An assumption of the constriction size. False.
>
> If we admit an moderate selection coefficient of
>>.01 the fixation time for a single mutation shrinks to about
>>40ky for a 10k ind population. Assuming a process which
>>proceeds gradually - for some reasons I prefer 7 steps -
>>this totals to 280ky or even if you allow the founder
>>popSize to be between 3-4k inds, one of the lowest values
>>seriously discussed, it would still be 250.000 years. And
>>this is a very accomodating value if one takes into account
>>that the time of speciation for mammalias usually is
>>estimated at 500ky.
>
>Keep it simple, you define the minimum lenght of the
>constriction. that is about 130 ky. Then you see if the
>number of autosomals fixed is greater than the number
>expected during that time, they are. Therefore you confirm
>that constriction of autosomals is consistent with haploids,
>everything else can be bleed through unless otherwise
>patterns in the putative bleed through alleles are such that
>they are scewed in a particularly unexpected direction. PDHA1
>may be an example so let us be certain.
>
>
>
>
>Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
>http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Philip Dei]

On Fri, 10 May 2002 17:35:22 GMT, "firstjois"
<firstjoisyikes@hotmail.com> wrote:

>Isn't there some point at which a thread between two people
>should become an email thing instead of newsgroup thing?

Been there, done that, equally never ending so I finally
stopped responding to him. Philip [pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu]
http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth

[Bob Keeter]

Seems I have an apology due. Not to our dear Dr. Deitiker this
time, but to Ejudy and Anne and even Jim McGinn. I have been
guilty of over estimating Philip or underestimating Philip,
and almost certainly both at the same time. Just as someone as
stupid as I was somehow or another able to ferret out his
"weakness" he has found mine. As I have tried to shame him by
needling at the weakness he has succeeded in exploiting mine.

I dont mind being the object of his little attacks, afterall
his attitude and public displays of what one might very kindly
term "bad manners" was the windmill I alone chose to charge,
and after all there is only so much of his "social commentary"
to go around. Unfortunately, I will not see others trashed and
insulted because I selfishly choose to slap, with laughing
ridicule, at the hornet nest of scientific egotism. I
apologize to you who he has managed to drag in the fray.

So, Philip, the ball is in your court. Abide by your own
stated rules, even though I might quibble with the wording and
question the sincerity, and I declare a unilateral cease fire.
Say whatever you care to about me, but leave others out of the
pileup. Live up to your OWN stated rules, now subject to that
wonderful Google archive, and the only fear you need have of
me is if I find some error in your statistics or a straying
from those rules.

For now, lets just see if those rules stand the test of time,
and perhaps we both can spend more time on more productive
pursuits! 8-)

My apologies again to two fine ladies and Mr. McGinn. bk

[Philip Dei]

On Wed, 08 May 2002 19:21:04 GMT, g-horvat@shaw.ca (Gisele
Horvat) wrote:

>On Wed, 08 May 2002 13:18:03 -0500, Philip Deitiker
><pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:

>Did you know, Philip, that, although I had written many
>postings on mtDNA recombination in various forums, you were
>the *first* individual to ever ask me for proof?

Wouldn't surprise me, here. Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[Philip Dei]

On Thu, 09 May 2002 02:09:24 GMT, Bob Keeter
<rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote:

Does this conversation ever end, you ever have a point in
which you stop and say, ahhhhh, thats enough I'm moving on.

> When science (or scientists) loose touch with with the
> realities of humanity hypoxia sets in. The mind starts to
> drift, the vision fogs and before you know it, you just
> about convince yourself that you are right and the whole
> rest of the world is wrong.

And so what?

>> Per exemplar, bob, as to why you would have difficulty in
>> advanced study.

>Although some would disagree with that statement I would
>agree wholeheartedly. LEARNING is hard, memorizing is easy,
>of course some would say that learning has very little to do
>with facts and more to do with thinking. Thinking I can
>usually manage, after all I dont just salute every flag that
>you happen to raise up the flagpole, even if at times I do
>give the devil his due. Perhaps LEARNING is one of those
>things that rarely gets taught in school.

Learning is life, school just orders it. If you require school
to learn, then you probably belong at a lower level of school.
If you go to school to teach you to see what you might have
missed, the you are truely learning.

>Yeah, but you are my hero! So important and intelligent and
>educated and smart and . . . . .well just plain PERFECT!
>Geewhillikers, when I flop over dead in my bed I will be able
>to be JUST LIKE YOU!

Only the earthworms will care about your folly. But they will
be pleased no matter what, (Unless you decide to be cremated)

>Feel nothing

What I feel for, your tunneled mind can't see.

>care about nothing

What I care about would blow by you like the wind and you
still wouldn't feel it.

>not even hear any criticism

I hear the critiques from the true of spirit. But when such
critiques are made do you recognize them as critiques, and do
you recognize my response.

>I'll be good at it dont you think!

You don't even know where to start.

>Now there you go calling someone a hypocrit or something
>equally unsavory. yep a quick way to win friends and
>influence people Id say.

If the shoe fits.

> And the benefit to science of that little mini-diatribe
> was. . . . actually what was the benefit to ANYBODY or
> anything?

I don't care.

> How is it that the actions of one are undeniably
> damning and in your case its just a passing trivial
> issue. . . . . .

I could have gotten a job in my home town, less money, but
there were overriding issues.

> Superman can fly in spite of gravity and you can rebuke
> others in spite of anything! Thats what makes you, you;

You got it.

> Sounds a bit like one of those "entries" to a
> self-fullfilling prophesy Id say! "Fundies" never change,
> Hatch changed, therefor he could not have been a "fundie"

Hatch is not a classical fundimentalist, he has never been.
Tom Delay and Phil Graham are. There are subtle differences in
sophistication.

> and therefore it doesnt matter if we insult those fundie
> churchgoeres up one wall and down the other as long as we
> sound knowledgable, important and appropriately aloof.

BTW, did I say that I was real sorry that noone wants e-mail
and stuff from you any more, cause you have a problem with a
very harassive personality. I realize that those who will
actually respond to you is diminishing.

> PLEASE, find some way to switch it over to "The dog ate it!"
> the sophistication of the logic would be much more
> satisfying and dogs dont really get insulted that way.

Your approach is a transparently backdoor way of trying to
defend fundementalism. I am beginning now to understand your
true motivation for being here, a number of other responses
testifies to either a confusion in your thinking or a
subvertive propoganda style. Which is true?

>This is the closest Ive come to an answer. Again it sounds
>like a 2nd grade answer that one might toss out when "the dog
>ate it" just dont fit. Like for example, Tommy, why did you
>punch Jonny in the nose, well teach, I did it cause he stuck
>his tongue out at me!

When in rome do as the romans do.

> A very mature and concisely logical arguement its not, but
> if you cant give me a better one am I supposed to imagine
> that a trained scientist has the social and emotional
> maturity of little Tommy?

Here is what you want. Its ok for group A, B, C, and D to be
abusive to science and related activities, because they are
the ignorant masses (that have kids and send them to school
and govern through their school). But scientist are supposed
to be educated, therefore they can't say didley, and if they
do its offensive, they have stepped out of place.

Here's a clue, Bobby, Honey. I ain't your slappin bitch. Got
it. You want someone to brown nose you, I don't swing that
way. So you can cover your ass-hole and put your pants
back up and look for another slapping bitch. I hear you
are having tough time getting respect here. Maybe you
should try talk.origins.

>But SQUEAKING is not the same as brazenly standing up and
>calling your opponent, and anyone who would dare to associate
>with or god forbid defend that poor person, a complete fool,
>now is it?

If the shoe fits. There are misimformed people here, but many
of the so-called fools have malicious spirits, their acts
here are a charade for other goals. Thus that describe you
bobby, honey.

>How do you do that when ever other word is a carefully aimed
>fully intentional insult? Hmmmmmmm. . . . . makes me wonder
>what you really ARE trying to achieve.

Bob, big fact here, I generally don't debate people who are in
complete agreement with me or vice versa. There are a number
of people here I seldomly do the twostep with. Reason.

1. They have been here along time and they know whats up and
whats down.
2. They are not absolute morons, and don't take every
opportunity to show how moronic they are.

I have no battle with these people.

There is a big difference between me having a 'shaving' of
difference over ambiguities in interpretation of the data who
I almost never respond to, and someone who pull
interpretations right out of their ass, brings very obscure
data to the debate. And you may notice that some of these
people are just flat out ignored by the rest of the group.

>> You don't see scientist doing any of these things, it is
>> not our nature.
>
>ROTFLMAO Again!

Glad you find it humerous.

> Whats the matter there Phil ole boy, afraid to get your
> hands dirty? Afraid to spend as much time and effort
> defending your PROFESSION as I end up spending trying to
> defend my HOBBY?

The only dirty hands I want are the dirty hands I get out in
my garden.

> guess I just have a really screwed up set of values.

In that we can both agree.

> I dont like to see science get a black eye because of your
> diatribes on the flames and eternal damnation that we are
> facing if people go to church (or for those like me for
> example that dont even go to church, but still happen to
> disagree with your devine and exclusive right to truth!) .

Well now that clearly shows the direction from which your BIAS
comes from, why don't you elaborate on this thought a bit
more. We are beginning to carve through your pretenses, have
we found the real Bob?

>OK, lets get really, REALLY basic! Do your diatribes serve
>the purpose of science? a) YES

Yes, because it makes me, as a scientist, feel better. You
know the feeling after you cut a really big fart. I have been
here for just a whole long time, and I have seen every form of
brainfartish inspiration come forth, so instead of pretending
to be real nice and understanding, only to get f_cked over by
folks like Jim McGinn (and be criticized by people like
Lorenzo for not having the sensitivity on my loonometer turned
up high enough). When I see a loon now I don't wait for him to
come into point blank range, I grab my .22-275 and start
taking shots a telescope range.

>We might have problems with the second part of the question
>but I REALLY want to hear the first part.

Come closer my son, and genuflect, I have something for you.

>But you see, I KNOW I could not contribute as much in the way
>of hard science as you or Gisele. I just plain dont have the
>knowledge, and as you have very pointedly described for those
>of us without the native intelect, well its hard if not
>impossible to get past the "start" box.

Ummm, let see instead of creating a steady tomfoolish
responses, say over the last 6 mos. You think you might have
gotten into the interrogatives earlier. Why don't you ask
Gisele (real nice and without the cynicism, how she has
managed to go about learning to study sequences.

>> Bob, ask yourself the question, what are you here for?
>
>I am absolute hobbist in the realm of anthropology. Never had
>the first class, totally self-taught in whatever
>insignificant bits of trivia I might know or imagine. Wont
>ever make $0.01 from the science. My only tangible
>contribution is that for years I ran tours up to an indian
>rock art site in the middle of a bombing range!

It time to move on from the escorting of obese middle age
women in floppy hats to a more serious study.

>Your hateful diatribes, under the guise of a science that I
>do have a deep appreciation if not understanding of feels
>like a personal insult.

Well at least you are within the range of the target. Now
ask yourself, how do I get out of the sites on Phil's scoped
out .22-275.
3. Do I continue to create Ivory Tower threads that go
absolutely know where
4. Do I slow down on the 'panic' button and start looking for
a means of confirming or refuting what someone says.
5. Do I ask how I might participate in the discovery process
and become a part of building the Tower instead of trying
to tear it down.

Your choice.

>Why? Why would "professionals" be wanted?

Because these groups were being overrun by people with
subversive interest. Because things like AAT and really
quasi-PA and in other groups quasi-scientific stuff kept
flooding these groups and they wanted people with genuine
interest to participate. During the first few years of the
Usenet it was possible to have good discussions, but then the
riff-raff became so 'overrunning' that many of the old
fashion readers could not be used anymore, and many scientist
quickly left.

> Could it be that professionals can insult or rant or spew
> invective and hate better? I think not.

You would be wrong, there was an active desire to clean up the
science part of the UseNet, diatripe or not, the state of this
NG (compared to anthropology) has been the result of
perseverance of folks like myself, Lorenzo, Phil Nicholls,
Bigelow and many others to keep this forum marginally useful.
Have you noticed the same people are criticizing you?

>Somewhere along the way though it would seem that the
>professional SCIENCE has slipped to the back burner in favor
>of a simple podium for preaching predjudice, pandering an
>opiate of bigotry and insult.

Prejudice, pandering and bigotry are no lessor of sin than
posting off-topic stuff, like this. Let us compare the number
of on-topic/off topic threads I've started versus you, hih

>> Does it involve Science and Paleo and Anthropology?
>> Remotely? Coincidentally? Occasionally? Infrequently?
>> Rarely?
>
>Recently. . . .sometimes. Other than the fact that Id very
>much like to paint a more human face on science and anthro in
>particular

You're in the wrong place, then.

> Luckily Im either too stupid to take the hint, too stuborn
> to care, or simply just dont believe that you own the
> newsgroup!

The bigger the loon the longer it takes for him to take off.

Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[Philip Dei]

On Sat, 11 May 2002 00:57:31 GMT, Bob Keeter
<rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote:

>I dont mind being the object of his little attacks

Yes you do. You know bob I don't needle everyone, you should
figure out the secret of not being needled and follow it.

>So, Philip, the ball is in your court.

No bob, its always been in yours.

> Abide by your own stated rules, even though I might quibble
> with the wording and question the sincerity, and I declare a
> unilateral cease fire. Say whatever you care to about me,
> but leave others out of the pileup.

You get the feeling I like needling you, if so why did I
killfile. The problem as others here will tell you is that
your very intrusive when you want to be. You said you were
going to killfile me, in order to stop your hopeless insanity
but alas you continue on.

> Live up to your OWN stated rules, now subject to that
> wonderful Google archive, and the only fear you need have
> of me is if I find some error in your statistics or a
> straying from those rules.

As if I care what Google can find, more net pollution. Use it
to google yourself something you can _ADD_ to this group
instead of meta-social commentaries.

>For now, lets just see if those rules stand the test of time,
>and perhaps we both can spend more time on more productive
>pursuits! 8-)
>
>My apologies again to two fine ladies and Mr. McGinn.

I am sure Lorenzo's net loon meter is going Ping, Ping, Ping
right now.

Suffice it to say you created yet another off topic thread.
And just to let you know I would have let the above go if you
hadn't, but alas you'll never change. Now why did I figure you
wouldn't apologize for that, darling. Philip <pdeitik at
bcm.tmc.edu

[Bob Keeter]

in article 3ebd2f29.5237578@netnews.worldnet.att.net, Philip
Deitiker at pdeitik@worldnet.att.net wrote on 5/8/02 11:28 PM:

> On Thu, 09 May 2002 02:09:24 GMT, Bob Keeter
> <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>
> Does this conversation ever end, you ever have a point in
> which you stop and say, ahhhhh, thats enough I'm moving on.
>

And I have my answer, so. . . . 8-)

>
>> OK, lets get really, REALLY basic! Do your diatribes serve
>> the purpose of science? a) YES
>
> Yes, because it makes me, as a scientist, feel better. You
> know the feeling after you cut a really big fart. I have
> been here for just a whole long time, and I have seen every
> form of brainfartish inspiration come forth, so instead of
> pretending to be real nice and understanding, only to get
> f_cked over by folks like Jim McGinn (and be criticized by
> people like Lorenzo for not having the sensitivity on my
> loonometer turned up high enough). When I see a loon now I
> don't wait for him to come into point blank range, I grab my
> .22-275 and start taking shots a telescope range.
>
>> We might have problems with the second part of the question
>> but I REALLY want to hear the first part.
>
> Come closer my son, and genuflect, I have something for you.
>

EUREKA! WE HAVE IT! The sociopathic actions make you feel
better! I knew that there had to be a reason, and certainly a
classy one at that. Id highly recommend the "methadone"
approach and suggest that you find a good Mexican restaurant
with excellent refridos, you know the kind with a little extra
habeneros added in for bite! Same rush of joy and endorphins
less hate and discontent!

Yep, a .22-275 feels about right, good for all varamits and
common people! Ooops, there I go with simply repeating
redundant terms. 8-) Well, perhaps not.

On the positive side Id have to say that this IS progress!
Half way through the first stage of a "12 step" is to
recognize the issue. But since you ARE a big boy and I
really cant drag the horse to water much less make him
drink, I'll trust you can carry on. It really would be nice
to take advantage of your knowledge and expertise without
gagging on your ego. 8-) See, kissy-kissy again, but even
fools like I can recognize competence just as well as we can
recognize the destructive behaviors that taint and minimize
it. You will probably just have to decide which is more
important, the endorphin rush or the science. Dont think
that they mix very well.

Snippage. . . .

>> Somewhere along the way though it would seem that the
>> professional SCIENCE has slipped to the back burner in
>> favor of a simple podium for preaching predjudice,
>> pandering an opiate of bigotry and insult.
>
> Prejudice, pandering and bigotry are no lessor of sin than
> posting off-topic stuff, like this. Let us compare the
> number of on-topic/off topic threads I've started versus
> you, hih
>
>>> Does it involve Science and Paleo and Anthropology?
>>> Remotely? Coincidentally? Occasionally? Infrequently?
>>> Rarely?
>>
>> Recently. . . .sometimes. Other than the fact that Id very
>> much like to paint a more human face on science and anthro
>> in particular
>
> You're in the wrong place, then.
>

Perhaps not. But we will let that rest. And as for this thread
in general, its perhaps time to let it rest too. I do have my
answer, but you see one of the biggest objective was to get it
from you. I will read the other posts, but I think perhaps
this one says about all that needs to be said (unless of
course the others are a retraction or disclaimer or another
"the dog ate it" rationalization.). For now, . . . . . .off to
class to LEARN. Actually a project which was why I ended up
being so tardy in replying to this one.

Consider your answer above, as a scientist of course, but also
as a human being. Those are NOT incompatible roles.

Regards bk

[Philip Dei]

On Fri, 10 May 2002 10:44:30 GMT, Bob Keeter
<rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote:

> Half way through the first stage of a "12 step" is to
> recognize the issue.

Yes, and so go look in the mirror and you can see what
that issue is.

>>> Recently. . . .sometimes. Other than the fact that Id very
>>> much like to paint a more human face on science and anthro
>>> in particular
>>
>> You're in the wrong place, then.
>
>dog ate it" rationalization.). For now, . . . . . .off to
>class to LEARN.

Make sure your anterior out of your posterior so that you can
hear your teacher.

>Actually a project which was why I ended up being so tardy in
>replying to this one.

Ooooo too bad, I thought my 15 step answer to the problem was
so much more, I don't know, can't find the right word .
. . . . . suppressive of the 8-) demeaner. Philip <pdeitik at
bcm.tmc.edu

[Mb]

Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:

> On Mon, 6 May 2002 20:11:23 +0200,
> musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de (mb) wrote:
>
>
> >what I´d like to know is based on which data you´ve
> >calculated that 1ME equals 35,500 years?
>
> This is based on a 5 my LCA for chimp and based on the
> region of 16124-16392, the fastest evolving part of HV1.
> ....I found about 283 ME between any given chimpanzee and
> any given human when ....

Aha, no I see at least a part of the story.

When you mentioned the 35ky/ME in your previous post I checked
this out, using the substitution rate Horai estimated for the
whole HV1. Applying this rate to HV1 gives ME = 25ky.

If I now take your 283 substitutions and calculate the
mutation rate for the above mentioned region I got - big
surprise - more or less exactly Horai's value, means 1.05e-7.
So in other words one gets that 35ky/ME if Horai's rate is
applied not to the full length of HV1 but to that stretch
you're focussing on.

This astonishing coincidence makes me wonder how you've found
this 283 mutations - it looks like a simple interpolation
based on Horai's substitution rate.

Then you were talking about transition fades and transversion
fades, about the transition/transversion rate you found to be
wrong but no have corrected to 19.3 followed by something
which should account for error estimations and so on. All this
is particular hazy in so far as it does not clearify how this
contributed to your calculation of the ME value, beside it
seems that some lines in this paragraph are missing.

And btw, I should point out that there are a number of papers
dealing with the estimation of transition/transversion ratios
in the hypervariable regions, and the variation of mutation
rate within this sequences. The connection between these rates
and their variability usually is described with Corbins gamma
distribution parameter alpha who somehow seems to lurks behind
the big fog of your excerpt though I don´t see how you've made
use of this. As for the transition/transversion rates in these
papers, the best ML estimates are usually between 20 and 25,
so your correction apparently isn't new.

However, I´m miracling how you get this 283 segregation sites.
If you could elaborate about the procedere applied...

>> To criticize a work for a particular reason is one thing,
>> to misrepresent it's content is another.

> ...Undersampling is undersampling.

but that was not the issue in your reply to J.W.

> ...You can add to this the fact there is little evidence for
> gene conversion and recombination which is suggestive that
> this loci may be even more slowly evolving than you think
> and that it was not fixed as it transited from the
> C/H LCA side. PDAH1 has a number of complexities...

I would say it is suggestive that this locus is suited well
for the kind of analyses undertaken by the authors. If one
investigates autosomal loci than he carefully picks those
which are not obscured by recombination events.

> >
> >I do realize this and the authors have realized this too.
> >The point is that they found a fixed difference between the
> >two branches and that the probablity to obtain the
> >resulting pattern can be calculated as being extremly low.
>
> Yes with no recombination between each other or evidence of
> recombination of gene conversion within the branches.

and your point is?

> ... And to top this off, one branch is alot more closely
> related to chimpanzee than the other, hmmmm.

Interesting, which one have you compared with which
chimp sequence?

>
> > Additional samples could reveal additional shared
> > haplotypes but won't change general picture nor the deepth
> > of the tree. Besides that they are in good company because
> > their results fit into what others found at other loci. So
> > I think this paper is justified, there are weaker ones.
>
> Sorry, No, you can't say this. You cannot predict the
> diversity of subpopulations you have never examined.
>

If you make a pairwise comparison of sequences you usually
calculate how likely the trees you obtained are. The result
can be expressed in the P-value which in this case is in the
range of e-11, and this makes their results reliable.

BTW, I'm missing this part:

>> I was not the only one to fault them on this.

> Who else was it and where can I find his critique?

??

> >
> >Huh? How should they be found "side by side in north
> >central africa"? The set of african samples consists of
> >south african Bantu, khoisan, pygmy and sengalese and was
> >compared to eurasian sequences - so what??
>
> Senegalese are part of the niger/nigerian group, this is
> north of the equator and slightly west. Biaka and Mbuti, the
> two remaining groups, biaka are from Central African
> Republic and cameroon, And Mbuti slightly west of that I
> beleive Uganda.
>

Out of those 16 african samples 7 are from southern africa,
the others are from the central part. Your statement that the
2 branches were found "side by side" in north central africa
makes no sense.

> >
> >I said nothing particular about the kind of speciation, be
> >it allopatric, sympatric whatever. As long as the
> >conditions are such that the number of emigrants from
> >outside can enter a population in the range given above a
> >speciation would be prevented and given the high mobility
> >of humans this is what I suggest for paleo africa.
>
> Based on what evidence; how do you know that some group in
> africa did not move into a new domain and isolate
> themselves.

Nobody so fare can know if a speciation process happpened or
not. But nevertheless one might reflect about the likelihood
of such a process and it's parameters as time and isolation.

A speciation necessarily will involve a number of subsequent
mutation events which have to be fixed in the founding
population and hence need a certain amount of time as well as
environmental conditions which prevent the external gene flow
during that period.

concerning the time: Let us assume that the founding
population has the often mentioned size of 10.000 inds and
that the mutations take place at autosomal sites. These
mutations could be either neutral or under natural selection.
In the first case you'd be lost because the fixation of a
single neutral allel would take about 800ky and hence already
3 steps should last longer then the existence of H.erectus.

So one have to conclude that the whole process is connected
to an selectional advantage. If we admit an moderate
selection coefficient of .01 the fixation time for a single
mutation shrinks to about 40ky for a 10k ind population.
Assuming a process which proceeds gradually - for some
reasons I prefer 7 steps - this totals to 280ky or even if
you allow the founder popSize to be between 3-4k inds, one of
the lowest values seriously discussed, it would still be
250.000 years. And this is a very accomodating value if one
takes into account that the time of speciation for mammalias
usually is estimated at 500ky.

concerning isolation: It remains to be explained how the
nature of the "new domain" where this speciation process
should happen has to have looked like. A domain which must
be suited to prevent the infiltration of other populations
or individuals of other populations for at least 250 ky.
This itself is hard to imagine, given that H.erectus shortly
after his emergence spread throughout the old world,
populating diverse habitats ranging from the georgian
mountains to the shore lines of indonesia, and given that
they obviously nevertheless remained one species which
indicates a high mobility.

What characteristic property of this "new domain" should
generate a evolutionary pressure which ties speciation to a
selectional advantage? The burden to depict a scenario
qualified for africa is up to you.

If any speciation within homo ever happened then - thats
my personal guess - probably to the neanderthals, because
in their case the conditions are much more likely
existed, because..

.. between the oldest remains of H.antecessor and the
appearance of
H.s.s in europe there is a time frame of about 750ky.

.. they are sealed in europe by at least two borders the
Mediterranean and the Pyrenees as well as the alpes and their
offshoots.

.. when H.erectus entered europe a species adapted to the warm
and warm/wet conditions of africa now had to face a cold to
wet/cold environment and periodical repeating ice ages, which
should account for a strong selective factor.

A scenario like this I can't see in africa.

Michael

[Firstjois]

Isn't there some point at which a thread between two people
should become an email thing instead of newsgroup thing?

Jois

[Philip Dei]

On Fri, 10 May 2002 21:08:10 +0200,
musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de (mb) wrote:

>Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:
>

>This astonishing coincidence makes me wonder how you've found
>this 283 mutations - it looks like a simple interpolation
>based on Horai's substitution rate.

Somewhat embarrisingly I did not read Horai's work until
Gisele pointed it out after I finished my deteminations. One
thing however that I noticed one can take a number of
different approaches but they all seem to gravitate toward the
same answer.

>I would say it is suggestive that this locus is suited well
>for the kind of analyses undertaken by the authors. If one
>investigates autosomal loci than he carefully picks those
>which are not obscured by recombination events.

Reason for second response. If this is true then I would
deeply troubled. As per I have heard rumors of loci
selection based on initial surveys favorable to ones
theories, isn't it easy if one is trying to avoid something
and find something else.

We are not that far in our points of view, I think I see your
basic position is that any indication of outgroup addition
corrupts OoA.

Let me explain mine.

In the particular scenario I think every reasonable molecular
geneticist can agree there was an expansion out of africa, and
there was a constriction capable of reducing genetic variation
in the human population. I hope we are on this page at least.

So now the issue becomes was there outgroup addition. To
answer this question we need a model. In a perfect model genes
would flow unidirectionally out of africa, and as the flowed
out they would or would not pick up out group variation.
Correct. So in this perfect scenario we would see a deeply
rooted varient appear in say Indian and there would be
derivatives inside of india and spread eastward and northward.

This is not a perfect world. And there has been some gene flow
back to africa. Therefore we cannot eliminate a loci from our
consideration simply because it ambiguous depths of origin.

So far as yet there has not been a loci sequenced with a depth
of diversity and statistical confidence that shows a distinct
exoafrican origin. Certainly some alleles should be completely
non-african and show outbound expansion.

But we do have alleles that MIGHT have been contributed from
exo-constriction groups that lived outside of africa and then
some compliment has moved back into africa.

So we need to ask some key question, way back in 1997, after
running several models of the population and then opening it
up to expansion, I noticed because I was not running the
algorythm enough generations, that minor alleles frequently
hanged close to the brink of exclusion, then expand
assymetrically. Therefore I realized that if any amount of
diversity bled through the constriction, rarely, you will see
alleles that are dead ringers for outgroup DNA. If what you
are implying is true it means the authors scanned loci for
whatever, they might have come across one of these. Not
important. The key issue is that the character of the pattern
is more important. Key to the pattern is the center of
expansion of a putative outgroup form is important.
Statistically the OoA is only so tolerant of putative
'outgroup' loci whose centers of expansion are far from the
geogrpahic center of most alleles expansion. One has to ask
the question, how likely in an assymetric, flushing like
expansion is one likely to see a deeply diverse component
centering and expanding outward from that point (or logically
from that fraction of the population descendant from those
individuals as they expand outward).

So some key questions, when we find an allele that appears
outgroup can we define where that allele expanded from
extrapolation from the current positions of peoples?

The second issue is somewhat more difficult, in the Case of
PDAH1 is does the rate of evolution of that allele consistent
with growth since the population expanded or is 'internal'
diversity in that type much deeper. The base problem with this
type of logic is that it is foiled under most autosomal
studies by extremely variable rates of mutation (coupled with
the silent effects of gene conversion). For example the HLA
loci carried at least 16 major alleles at DRB1 and B through
the bottleneck where as the expectation, by my estimates, that
3 would be tolerated. Selection has played a role in this but
also if one looks at DRB1 a couple of recombinations and you
can regenerate at least 2 alleles. But the nature of the 16
alleles is even more interesting, because they were carried
through unknown number of speciation events with MRCA,
according to Ayala, of 60 million years (probably 80 if we
have our primatology right) grin.

_Therefore_ major alleles do go through speciation events and
I suppose the human speciation is not the first to be the
result of some kind of constriction.

If we look at PDAH1 the african alleles have a number of
mutations, insertions, trnasversions which would lead one to
believe that they are considerably older than the
constriction, the figure argues 800 ky. Whereas the depth of
the haplotypes A,B, B1, and C of less that 400 kya. Now let us
suppose we had a single species of hominids world wide and
that one group expanded at the general expense of most other
groups. Let us argue also the Dmasi's greatgrandfather carried
the allele into eurasia and there was little gene flow back to
africa from that point. How deep should the diversity be in
Haplotypes A to C, the diversity of such a broad sampling
should be 1.5 to 2.0 million years. If we remove sequence C
which is african, that diversity is only 150 kya. So now was
there somekind of constriction that covered all eurasians 150
kya, based on morphology, doesn't look like it, unless of
course some of those morphologies were species and so thier
variation is locked away. So let us once again look at page
3321. If I am drawing a parsimony tree, it would exactly look
like theirs. Mutation 544 converts the ancestral form of the
haplotype group (which is found in biaka pygmies [candidate
group for ancestral human population, From central african
republic = Baika], Not in Khosian, one of the early breaks
from human], in Bantu, god only knows where they originated in
africa, and senegalese, who often (with niger/nigerian) show
affinity for west eurasian point of expansion from africa),
Not exactly the best survey of africa, Gisele, what do you
think, many groups like Mbuti, San, Somalians, Kenyans, etc.
So now based on this what might we conclude.

Here is what phil says about the geographic center of
expansion based on his web site.

"The combined center of gravity; however based on the once
expansive khosian population in the south does not alter much
, because the center is heavily weighed in the north,
suggesting that expansion took place suggeting a probably
locale of early expansion was bounded on the extremes by
Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe,
Botswana, and Nambia. However the data points to the Congo
watershed as core to this region, with Congo, "Zaire", Angola,
and Central African Republic as most likely foci of the
coalescence. The early expanders favored Nigeria, Central
African Republic, Kenya, and South Africa. Characterized by
hilly terrain and grassland/woodland forest intermixes. "

Ok so central african republic, biaka pygmy seems to represent
a point and based on 4 alleles the concensus of all 4 is found
in africa close to the point of human expansion based on a
completely independent analysis of expansion done by the
completely independent minded phil-guy. (and by the way I
think the region is more tightly definable than what I state,
but crazy phil thinks the expansion was biphasic with a small
period of regional expansion an nominal population growth
initially separting of the kung, followed by a period of
explosive growth)

So actually it seems that some fraction of a regionally
restricted population might have possessed the allele. Now
that you have forced me to go back and review this paper you
have given me a boost of confidence. Previous to doing my site
I was prefering a southafrican point of origin, but since I
have reviewed the data and redone the seqeuncing based on
better consensus I prefer the point of origin northward to the
northern congo region, closer to the biaka (but I would sure
like to see more mtDNA from angola and congo). There is little
evidence of eurasian backflow into the biaka, as they have
remained somewhat genetically isolated from other africans.
Therefore now I see a point of expansion of the haplotypes
very close to my putative center within africa in which humans
expanded. Thank you, this clears this paper up.

Just to clean up the discussion. So now the remaining issue is
the depth of variation of PDAH1 within a constriction. As
pointed out in my site it takes ~4 times as long to fix a
autosomal as a haploid loci. To statistically constrict both
mt and Y chromosomes you need an interval to fix the 2 loci
half the time, which is about 1/3 the time required to fix
1/2 of autosomals. Therefore we can add this PDAH1 into the
pile of 'bleed through' genes that are not fixed. In
addition, haplotypes C is ancestral to A and B so that is
one allele in the constriction. Haplotype J also looks
ancestral to D, H, I (1232 is a convertant in F or H, so
there goes that non-recombinant hypothesis) and a missing
haplotype 494A, 1300C, 2975T is ancestral to E, F, and G. So
essentially each of these 3 branch trees is less than 100
kya (probably older, but we have 150 ky to play with),
meaning that there were 2 or 3 branches that passed through
the bottleneck, which is exactly the number I would predict,
on average to pass. So our constriction is still filtering
molecular information. OK, so what else. Haplotypes A-C are
more closely related to chimps than D-J. But how closely is
hard to say since the chimp differences to humans are not
given. This gene could be an example of a gene that has
'bled through' many constrictions, like HLA in which it
continues, fortuitously or through selection, as variant
alleles through each speciation cycle. In order whether this
is the case we need more sequences from the diverse
chimpanzee clad. I can now conclude this is 'bleed through'
variation and eliminate it from the ? pile. Thanks again for
prodding me with this paper, I knew my updated mtDNA studies
would come in handy somewhere.

OK to conclude, it looks like now all examples of autosomal
diversity are either examples of 'bleed through' variation
that resulted from an expanding population or as a result of
interbreeding with AHS within african in small amounts after
the constriction. To date there are no convincing putative
'outgroup' alleles that suggest contribution outside of
africa. NEXT PAPER. You want to go over the paper on DRD1 that
Leif keeps screaming about.

Oh and BTW, you implicit concept that speciation requires a
certain time of fixation to create a species defining boundary
is a big assumption. And I never argued that the boundary was
sealed against the stem population. I humans underwent half
the process, and neandertals underwent half the process,
Neandertal and Human could be species, but still capable of
mating with members of intermediate populations. See in this
whole bugaboo, although I don't desire to presume a mechanism
or assume selection, the point is that intrinsics boundaries
that formed in africa may have semispecific early on and fixed
in the constriction (as some autosomals did) but had help
entering do to self-imposed territorial restrictions (mutual
between african groups). [And I need to point out, youre idea
about fixation lacks a statistical point, the rate of fixation
at any distance from the MRCA is a skewed sigmoidal curve with
large range even though the a constriction is not as long as
the medial time of fixation, genes (including genes that
control speciation) can still fix neutrally]. Only when those
restrictions are occasionally tested might fertility have
dropped, but still tolerant of some gene flow. Only on the
late side of the constriction will the mechanistic issues need
to take permanance. However, i don't want to beg the issue. It
is obvious that behavior changes lead to some sort of
explosive expansion, but this is not species defining, and I
assume that these are not related, so that the event occurred
much earlier and was tested later. By the same token this
might have been paralleled by Neandertals. And the minimal 2
change paradigm for speciation should have occurred. However,
this is an assumption because we are unaware of the mechanics
and this is a theoretical prediction. In reality a number of
soft barrier genes could have been accumulating since the
speciation of erectoids, and it may have been getting more
difficult not to speciate as these genes were accumulating.
Thus going through constrictions and fixing genes that
occasionally caused interfertility issues may have been the
only choice for subpopulations, or risk continual lower
reprodcutive rates or confusing mate selection strategies. As
a result accumlated chaff in the gene pool may have forced
hominids into isolation whether they wanted it or not, with
the more isolated groups getting rid of 'success' limiting
incompatibilities faster. Could be part of the secret to human
success. Point is don't assume a mechanism of speciation, as
to create a paper tiger to shoot at. We don't know the
mechanics, there are no paper tigers to be hung as targets,
yet. Don't assume that speciating genes need average fixation
times to fix, Don't assume we understand the deep underlying
trends in the population approaching the constriction
boundary. Don't assume neutrality. Don't assume anything, that
way when the mechanism of speciation is someday deduced you
wont be fooled by misassumptions. [should I make one of the BK
smiley faces now to lower your blood pressure, lol].

Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[Bob Keeter]

in article 3ec0bb5d.1109189@netnews.worldnet.att.net,
Philip Deitiker at pdeitik@worldnet.att.net wrote on
5/10/02 11:33 PM:

Snip. . . . . . . .
>
> OK to conclude, it looks like now all examples of autosomal
> diversity are either examples of 'bleed through' variation
> that resulted from an expanding population or as a result of
> interbreeding with AHS within african in small amounts after
> the constriction. To date there are no convincing putative
> 'outgroup' alleles that suggest contribution outside of
> africa. NEXT PAPER. You want to go over the paper on DRD1
> that Leif keeps screaming about.
>
Shippage. . . . . .

OK. May have missed this in the discussion, but is your
"backflow" by any chance limited just to those groups from
northern/central Africa? And if so, is there any respectable
genetic magic to put an age to the influx.
i.e. is there any way to specifically exclude the contribution
from having been in the last 10,000 yrs or so? Drift
being, can you, tag it as a recent thing or is it an old
issue. If new, you could easily attribute it to traders,
colonists (perhaps as far back as the megalithic cultures
since we know that they were milling around the Med
coastlines), Mycenean and later Greeks, Carthagians (most
likely I think to have made some discernable
contributions) or whatever. If it goes back to a truely
ancient time. . . .
.

Actually, Id bet on the more recent case.

>. . . . . . . . .[should I make one of the BK smiley faces
> now to lower your blood pressure, lol].
>

You can try. Dont think anyone will buy it. 8-)

[Mb]

Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@worldnet.att.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 10 May 2002 21:08:10 +0200,
> musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de (mb) wrote:
>
> >Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:
> >
>
> >This astonishing coincidence makes me wonder how you've
> >found this 283 mutations - it looks like a simple
> >interpolation based on Horai's substitution rate.
>
> Somewhat embarrisingly I did not read Horai's work....

which doesn´t surprise me much. Because if one is going to
make such a big deal about mtDNA, why the hell should he care
for the darn primary literature? [big BK smile faces]

> ..... One thing however that I noticed one can take a number
> of different approaches but they all seem to gravitate
> toward the same answer.

This gravitation may be explained by the simple equation:

1.05e-7[Horai's rate] * 269[partHV1] *
1e7[BranchLengthPanHomo] = 283

and the other way round:

ME = 1e7 / 283 = 35.000 years

Since you are not able to line out how you get this 283
substitutions one must conclude that you let it
gravitate this way.

>
> >I would say it is suggestive that this locus is suited well
> >for the kind of analyses undertaken by the authors. If one
> >investigates autosomal loci than he carefully picks those
> >which are not obscured by recombination events.
>
> Reason for second response. If this is true then I would
> deeply troubled. As per I have heard rumors of loci
> selection based on initial surveys favorable to ones
> theories, isn't it easy if one is trying to avoid something
> and find something else.
>

If you see it like this then you have any reason to be deeply
concerned, because at this point of you its safe to say that
you don't know what you're talking about. If you carry out a
phylogenetic analysis like this of Hey you are about counting
mutation sites. Number of sites equals the evolutionary time
line. Investigating sequences which, due to recombination
have lost or gained segregation sites, would at best skew
your results or more likely make any predication impossible.
If you nevertheless detect obscur sites exclude them. This is
among the very basic preconditions one has to obey for this
kind of analysis.

About your first reading of Heys paper I'll spare out any
comment, seems you enjoyed it. It's just amazing to see how a
work you didn't know so fare, but nevertheless criticized for
a week becomes such an important thing that you even feel like
adapting your personal pet theory.
P.D. changes the horses midstream, but who cares =8-O

Well, I think it's enough now. Waste of time is over.

Michael

[Mb]

Philip Deitiker <pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu> wrote:

Okay, this lasts for long enough now. I will go through in
all brevity.

>
> >This astonishing coincidence makes me wonder how you've
> >found this 283 mutations - it looks like a simple
> >interpolation based on Horai's substitution rate.
>
> There are several methodologies, the reason I selected
> lHV1 ....

This was not the question asked.

hence: [snip]

>
> >Then you were talking about transition fades and
> >transversion fades, about the transition/transversion rate
> >you found to be wrong but no have corrected to 19.3
> >followed by something which should account for error
> >estimations and so on. All this is particular hazy in so
> >far as it does not clearify how this contributed to your
> >calculation of the ME value, beside it seems that some
> >lines in this paragraph are missing.
>
> Transitions can undergo reverse mutations or parallel
> mutations...

Huh? Transitions undergo mutations?? This is where the
PD-fogometer pings at maximum scale.

Mutations are transitions or transversions, and yes sites may
mutate repeatedly. This is nothing new.

It is absolutely tiresome if you mess uo the terms and if
going to continue without addressing the issue. I haven't
ask for the differences between your results and a 11
years old work.

hence: [snip]

> And I figure you are going to blast over about why HV2
> and eHV1 are just as good.

No, I'm absolutely aware about the differences within these
regions and I have not asked for an in depth explanation of
these relative trivia.

hence: [snip]

>
> >And btw, I should point out that there are a number of
> >papers dealing with the estimation of
> >transition/transversion ratios in the hypervariable
> >regions, and the variation of mutation rate within this
> >sequences. The connection between these rates and their
> >variability usually is described with Corbins gamma
> >distribution parameter alpha who somehow seems to lurks
> >behind the big fog of your excerpt though I don´t see how
> >you've made use of this.
>
> The distribution is generally used as a depost-facto
> statistics, but people seldomly apply this as to condition
> their confidence intervals, as they should.

I know what this parameter is good for, I've been asking how
you've made use of it.

hence: [snip]

>
> >As for the transition/transversion rates in these papers,
> >the best ML estimates are usually between 20 and 25, so
> >your correction apparently isn't new.
>
> >However, I´m miracling how you get this 283 segregation
> >sites. If you could elaborate about the procedere
> >applied...
>
> 19.3 transversions between chimp and human, used a
> corrected(corrected t:t). ... .. I solved for number of
> ME based on what information I had on chimp and human in
> order to solve the descrepancy between Gorilla/Chimp
> versus Human/Chimp (realizing the gorilla has a humongous
> delection) since the base ussumption that whatever
> concensus you generate should be equally similar to
> gorilla.

> .. and so on

I have asked you a simple question: How have you calculated
this 283 sites.

What one expects is something like this:

I used n human sequences from this DB and m chimp sequences
which i retrieved from X. Made an multiple alignment according
to.., carried out a pairwise comparison using this
tool/procedure .. got this results.. corrected segr. sites
applying JC, REV model whatever .. ignored/ignored not these
site because.. ... and so at least got this number of 283.

That would be the procedure generally followed if one is going
to publish something or joining a scientific discussion. You
reveal procedures, materials, strategies such that others are
able to repeat and hence to check what something is worth.
That gives the hard soil necessary.

What you've offered here is a big amount of fog but it hasn't
answered the question asked. You are slingering all the way
long spreading trivia, making side steps, become never precise
and that makes any dicussion with you entirely senseless.

> >> ...Undersampling is undersampling.
> >
> >but that was not the issue in your reply to J.W.
>
> It is the major issue.

May I refresh your memory. You claimed "that PDHA1 is the
onliest loci which shows diversity steming from out side
africa" suggesting MREH support. You obviously mixed up PDHA1
with Gk which is indicated as the onliest extra african locus
in Takahatas paper.

Because you apparantly never read Hey's work about PDHA1 nor
knew anything about his intentions but didn't bother to
comment anyway I was about correcting this.

That you focus on undersampling is simple side steping.

>
> >I would say it is suggestive that this locus is suited well
> >for the kind of analyses undertaken by the authors. If one
> >investigates autosomal loci than he carefully picks those
> >which are not obscured by recombination events.
>
> But then you have to ask why.

Have I? Would say you've to explain why one if he's going to
carry out a phylogenetic analysis should choose loci which are
shaken by recombination.

>
> >If you make a pairwise comparison of sequences you usually
> >calculate how likely the trees you obtained are. The result
> >can be expressed in the P-value which in this case is in
> >the range of e-11, and this makes their results reliable.
>
> You can get a very nice P-value if you have used selectively
> faulty logic to set up your analysis. One of the basic
> issues in doing molecular studies is indicating the source
> of common ancestry. In that paper the source of common
> ancestry of the
> N.afr/Eurasian anscestry was not clear. (again I dont have
> the paer in front of me at present)

No surprise there, that's what I expected. It's just amazing
how you since a week going to comment about a paper you didn't
know so fare.

> >
> >>> I was not the only one to fault them on [under
> >>> sampling].
> >
> >> Who else was it and where can I find his critique?
>
> Takahata has made some critique about the treatment of the
> two alleles;

He did not criticize Hey for undersampling as you suggested.
He mentioned that Heys paper is not a support for MREH as it
was interpreted by others.

So as usual, whenever one pins you on a reference it turns out
that you refer to it anything but correct.

>
> > If we admit an moderate selection coefficient of .01 the
> > fixation time for a single mutation shrinks to about 40ky
> > for a 10k ind population. Assuming a process which
> > proceeds gradually - for some reasons I prefer 7 steps -
> > this totals to 280ky or even if you allow the founder
> > popSize to be between 3-4k inds, one of the lowest values
> > seriously discussed, it would still be 250.000 years. And
> > this is a very accomodating value if one takes into
> > account that the time of speciation for mammalias usually
> > is estimated at 500ky.
>
> Keep it simple, you define the minimum lenght of the
> constriction.

No, I estimated a time frame.

> that is about 130 ky.

Huh?

> Then you see if the number of autosomals fixed is greater
> than the number expected during that time, they are.
> Therefore you confirm that constriction of autosomals is
> consistent with haploids, everything else can be bleed
> through unless otherwise patterns in the putative bleed
> through alleles are such that they are scewed in a
> particularly unexpected direction. PDHA1 may be an example
> so let us be certain.
>

I'm not going to stirr in the fog of such crude statements
like the above.

Michael

[Gisele Hor]

On Sat, 11 May 2002 04:33:19 GMT, pdeitik@worldnet.att.net
(Philip Deitiker) wrote:

[...]
> So let us once again look at page 3321. If I am drawing a
> parsimony tree, it would exactly look like theirs.
> Mutation 544 converts the ancestral form of the haplotype
> group (which is found in biaka pygmies [candidate group
> for ancestral human population, From central african
> republic = Baika], Not in Khosian, one of the early breaks
> from human], in Bantu, god only knows where they
> originated in africa, and senegalese, who often (with
> niger/nigerian) show affinity for west eurasian point of
> expansion from africa), Not exactly the best survey of
> africa, Gisele, what do you think, many groups like Mbuti,
> San, Somalians, Kenyans, etc. So now based on this what
> might we conclude.

What do I think? Generally speaking, I think that I would like
to find the source of the Polynesians, Melanesians, Australian
aborigines, etc. *first*. It may seem logical to start at the
beginning but the trail is more obscure. That's why I prefer
to work backwards from the present. Archaeologists have long
theorized that there was a fairly recent migration into
Australia from the direction of India but I have not seen good
correlations between Asian Indian and aborigine sequences...
Surely, sequences which have only been separated by 4,000 or
so years should be recognizable? If not, then I'd like to know
why they are not. So, while this is not likely the answer you
expected, I'd like to see more complete sequences of Oceanic
peoples before contemplating how everything fits together.

Gisele

[Philip Dei]

On Sat, 11 May 2002 10:53:31 GMT, Bob Keeter
<rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote:

>traders, colonists (perhaps as far back as the megalithic
>cultures since we know that they were milling around the Med
>coastlines), Mycenean and later Greeks, Carthagians (most
>likely I think to have made some discernable contributions)
>or whatever. If it goes back to a truely ancient time. . . .

In Niger and Senegal certainly. But guess what, the concensus
of the A B1 C series is only found in africa. If it where the
other way around, if the concensus is found in mongolia and
then you had some highly derivatized allele in africa, then
you have to wonder.

Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[Philip Dei]

On Sat, 11 May 2002 19:38:44 +0200,
musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de (mb) wrote:

>which doesn´t surprise me much. Because if one is going to
>make such a big deal about mtDNA, why the hell should he care
>for the darn primary literature? [big BK smile faces]

You summarized my sentiments exactly. No the reason was this
Horai had focused primarily on eurasian alleles, particularly
east asian alleles. If the study did not african components, I
was and still pretty not interested in
it. I have this thing about doing sequencing at the point of
diversity. My base opinion was that I am not superman, I
cant align every of 2000 sequences and create a single
parsimony tree to create a consensus, which was important
to determine the frequency of transversion. I used
eurasian sequences in the DBase that had unambiguous
lineages (i.e. lacked evidence of parallel or reverse
mutations) and simply appended several groups of these to
that african database.

>> ..... One thing however that I noticed one can take a
>> number of different approaches but they all seem to
>> gravitate toward the same answer.
>
>This gravitation may be explained by the simple equation:
>
>1.05e-7[Horai's rate] * 269[partHV1] *
> 1e7[BranchLengthPanHomo] = 283

The original estimate of mine was actually 279 before I added
the partial addition of transversion within human populations.

> and the other way round:
>
> ME = 1e7 / 283 = 35.000 years

35500.

>Since you are not able to line out how you get this 283
>substitutions one must conclude that you let it gravitate
>this way.

And that conclusion, mr I-wanna-be-O-J-Simpsons_Laywer, is
wrong. You haven't visited my website have you? I think not.
The truth is far more frightening than your fantasy, but since
you still proport MREH, I guess its a personality trait [fat
smiley faces]

>> Reason for second response. If this is true then I would
>> deeply troubled. As per I have heard rumors of loci
>> selection based on initial surveys favorable to ones
>> theories, isn't it easy if one is trying to avoid something
>> and find something else.
>>
>
>If you see it like this then you have any reason to be deeply
>concerned, because at this point of you its safe to say that
>you don't know what you're talking about.

Pretty safe, except lets go back 10 years and see what I said
and what you said and lets see whose closer to the current
reality, then lets role the clock forward 10 years and see
hits closer to the target.

>If you carry out a phylogenetic analysis like this of Hey you
>are about counting mutation sites. Number of sites equals the
>evolutionary time line.

Let me ask you a question, suppose I did the following, in
order to reduced the affects of 'whatever' I did a partial
scan of the population of loci, and from that partial scan I
did a population survey of 40 loci and showed all had fixed
recently. Is that a statistically good way of looking at the
OoA/"whatever" problem. No, its not, because each region has
undergone different dynamics of drift some get fixed, some
have small amounts of bleed through variation, and some have
alot of bleed through variation. If you select only those
alleles that support your cause, in essence you are creating a
statistical lie.

> Investigating sequences which, due to recombination have
> lost or gained segregation sites, would at best skew your
> results or more likely make any predication impossible. If
> you nevertheless detect obscur sites exclude them. This is
> among the very basic preconditions one has to obey for this
> kind of analysis.

>About your first reading of Heys paper I'll spare out any
>comment, seems you enjoyed it.

I read Hey 3 years ago, smuck. I presented this paper here, a
few weeks after it was published, go do a google search.

>It's just amazing to see how a work you didn't know so fare,
>but nevertheless criticized for a week becomes such an
>important thing that you even feel like adapting your
>personal pet theory.
>P.D. changes the horses midstream, but who cares =8-O

Buddy, I don't go draggin papers out of the filing cabinet
every time we get into one of these silly debates.

>Well, I think it's enough now. Waste of time is over.

Yes, you obviously realized you were wrong. The ancestral form
of A-B-B1-C center in the biaka, whoops, there goes that
conclusion. Maybe in 10 years you will finally get on right,
oops. I bet it tough having such command over the literature
and still always miss the target, bye-bye.

Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[Philip Dei]

On Sat, 11 May 2002 17:51:14 GMT, g-horvat@shaw.ca (Gisele
Horvat) wrote:

>What do I think? Generally speaking, I think that I would
>like to find the source of the Polynesians, Melanesians,
>Australian aborigines, etc. *first*. It may seem logical to
>start at the beginning but the trail is more obscure. That's
>why I prefer to work backwards from the present.
>Archaeologists have long theorized that there was a fairly
>recent migration into Australia from the direction of India
>but I have not seen good correlations between Asian Indian
>and aborigine sequences... Surely, sequences which have only
>been separated by 4,000 or so years should be recognizable?
>If not, then I'd like to know why they are not. So, while
>this is not likely the answer you expected, I'd like to see
>more complete sequences of Oceanic peoples before
>contemplating how everything fits together.

IOW sample size is inadequate.

Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu

[Philip Dei]

On Sat, 11 May 2002 19:38:48 +0200,
musta@mail.zedat.fu-berlin.de (mb) wrote:

>I have asked you a simple question: How have you calculated
>this 283 sites.

I picked a number between 1 and 1000 randomly [obviously I
don't put my website on 1/2 of posts for mb eyes, because I
don't think he's actually been there]

Are you color blind, are the colors of the figures and graphs
in my site, cause you to not see anything. Did they create red
flashing lights that made you turn off your computer.

283, now that you showed me your extrapolation to Horais is
probably wrong, because the first part of HV1 is evolving more
slowely therefore my estimate and his should differs. One or
both of us has made a mistake.

If I extended my site the interval/ME should be 28600 not
25000, therefore given the difference in rate of evolution
lHV1 based on Horai should be 247.

>I used n human sequences from this DB and m chimp sequences
>which i retrieved from X. Made an multiple alignment
>according to.., carried out a pairwise comparison using this
>tool/procedure .. got this results.. corrected segr. sites
>applying JC, REV model whatever .. ignored/ignored not these
>site because.. ... and so at least got this number of 283.

Yes and they would reference there methods, have you checked
the reference site at the end of my posts.

http://home.att.net/~DNAPaleoAnth/mtDNACalib.html

[I know, clicking on the links in a site is difficult for an
overeducated Berliner, so I put in a direct link to this
page so you can find 15 other ways to curse me, why, I don't
know, this part of the site was finished in mid, february
and is already searchable in some search engines, but I
guess . . . . ]

>That would be the procedure generally followed if one is
>going to publish something or joining a scientific
>discussion. You reveal procedures, materials, strategies such
>that others are able to repeat and hence to check what
>something is worth. That gives the hard soil necessary.

Well, I give you something, but I wont argue it hard soil. I
got to 246 ME and it did not reconcile so I virtually
guestimated the inconsistencies to get 279 (and my more
important point which you will not get into your head is that
one is required to guestimate. Anyone who says they have a
hard soil estimate of the number of mutations between your
average human and average chimp does not know what a
confidence interval is. I don't even thing you know what a
confidence interval, frankly. This is why MREH still twinkles
in your head.

Here is mine (-45% to +65%): Is this Horai's? Huh. Did he give
a 96% confidence range of 155 to 466 ME, or an cycle time of
13.75 to 41.25 (for 25,000/ME)?

LET ME REPEAT 283 is more or less a guestimate based on a
'foggy' number of estimatable reverse or parallel mutations
between chimp and humans. As a result the confidence interval
is more important than the mean, in this example.

>May I refresh your memory. You claimed "that PDHA1 is the
>onliest loci which shows diversity steming from out side
>africa" suggesting MREH support. You obviously mixed up PDHA1
>with Gk which is indicated as the onliest extra african locus
>in Takahatas paper.

No I said it was the ugliest allele outside africa, rofl. Gk
has only 2 alleles and is likely a recently fixed allele,
since anywhere a new variant appears become the center of
diversity for a population, studying loci with 2 variants is
pretty much useless. Wrong again Mikey.

>Because you apparantly never read Hey's work about PDHA1 nor
>knew anything about his intentions but didn't bother to
>comment anyway I was about correcting this.
>
>That you focus on undersampling is simple side steping.

Lets see the sequence 4 african groups and 4 eurasian groups,
and a world with 7000 languages, and you accuse me of
sidestepping. Tell me does it hurt you to talk with your foot
in your mouth?

>Have [should] I? Would say you've to explain why one if he's
>going to carry out a phylogenetic analysis should choose loci
>which are shaken by recombination.

Yes if its in a linkage group that is characterized be
recombination.

>No surprise there, that's what I expected. It's just amazing
>how you since a week going to comment about a paper you
>didn't know so fare.

You got me there, As a rule I don't ready every paper in my
filing cabinet once a week. Generally I get a paper of
interest, I critique here and keep an aspect in my head. In
this example, the harris and hey has been shuffled around so
much the title page is missing on it. Probably used a scratch
paper sometime in the past.

>He did not criticize Hey for undersampling as you suggested.
>He mentioned that Heys paper is not a support for MREH as it
>was interpreted by others.

That may have been a critique, I did not see it, thanks, I
believe however it was treated as two alleles in his analysis.

>So as usual, whenever one pins you on a reference it turns
>out that you refer to it anything but correct.

Anything but I did not say anything about others
interpretations of takahatas.

>> Keep it simple, you define the minimum lenght of the
>> constriction.
>
>No, I estimated a time frame.

Based on what, tea leaves in a boiling pot. The only timeframe
for constrictions you can estimate are base on the data.

mtDNA-fixed Y-fixed. Half time required for fixation of 2
alleles is roughly 1.4 times the half time required for
fixation of 1 allele. Based on the stated population size the
50:50 time required for the constriction is 130 ky.

From that point, Mikey, you ask the question does the
autosomal data support this (since you haven't been to my site
you obviously haven't seen my analysis, the copresentation of
ploidy = 0.5, 1.5, and 2.0 average time to fixation/apearance
with gen/popsize, but if you have you would know that) since
about 30-40% of the sites examined have fixed in the last 500
ky. Based on the expected fixation times of autosomals and
X-linked one can estimate that the constriction WAS ONLY
SLIGHTLY LONGER THAN THE TIME TO FIX THE HAPLOIDS. Of course
the 'bleed through'/'outgroup contribution' issue affects
this, but according to takahata that contribution will not be
over 12%, and as a result I can conclude that the number of
fixed alleles will not be over 45%, which is less than 400 ky
required adding this to MY estimate of expansion the
contriction cannot be older than 500 ky. Therefore your 800 ky
time is something you pulled out of your shorts and again you
are WRONG.

>I'm not going to stirr in the fog of such crude statements
>like the above.

Yes but tell us why you define that the constriction had to be
800 ky. Why do speciation constrictions HAVE to be 8 times the
population size? I did not see where that was defined in a
paper? Where is your reference for that? What procedure did
you use to derive it?

Bye Mikey, sure you'll be back when you forgot that you keep
losing these debates. [Lots of smiley faces to sooth your
troubled soul, lol]

Philip <pdeitik at bcm.tmc.edu