23 Responses to “Open Thread: Tiger Family”

1. Bradford Says:
   November 17th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

   Are there any MMA fans out there? Lesner and Florian look awesome do they not?

Comment by Bradford — November 17, 2008 @ 1:49 pm

2. Raevmo Says:
   November 17th, 2008 at 8:19 pm

   Being owned by a bunch of cats myself, I must say that a more feline rather than leporidan approach to open threads has been a major improvement since Mike Gene's departure from TT.

Comment by Raevmo — November 17, 2008 @ 8:19 pm

3. Bradford Says:
   November 17th, 2008 at 11:32 pm

   Raevmo:

   Being owned by a bunch of cats myself, I must say that a more feline rather than leporidan approach to open threads has been a major improvement since Mike Gene's departure from TT.

   A bunch of cats own you Raevmo? That might explain your sometimes stalking commentary. I'm surprised your cats let your girlfriend near you.

Comment by Bradford — November 17, 2008 @ 11:32 pm

4. computerist Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 1:15 am

   Hi Bradford,

   All I can say is two words, Anderson Silva. He is unstoppable and the next Jones or Ali in my books. After watching many of his fights in Pride, I declared him champion of UFC long before he stepped into the UFC octagon, it was an inevitable consequence of his fighting style.

   Brock Lesner? Sort of sloppy if you ask me. One thing you can't do is question his heart, dedication, HIS SIZE and his potential. As primarily a wrestler, he managed to out strike Randy Couture who should have retired long ago.

   Lesners fight against Fedor would be his undoing only if Fedor would join the organization. As far as I can tell, there isn't much excitement left in the heavyweight division apart from Lesnar, he will likely sustain the championship belt for a while.

   Here is full video of latest UFC event (btw, thanks for reminding me):

   http://www.megavideo.com/?v=CR...

   Brock did good!

Comment by computerist — November 18, 2008 @ 1:15 am

5. Bradford Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 6:04 am

   computerist: All I can say is two words, Anderson Silva. He is unstoppable and the next Jones or Ali in my books. After watching many of his fights in Pride, I declared him champion of UFC long before he stepped into the UFC octagon, it was an inevitable consequence of his fighting style.

   Silva has been touted as the best pound per pound fighter in the world of MMA. He probably is although, if we're talking about pound per pound, WEC bantamweight champ Miguel Angel Torres is a worthy challenger and much underrated in my view. Silva is a very balanced fighter and an impressive striker to say the least. I'm also impressed by his ability to carry weight effectively at the 205 pound class. I expected to see a relative drop in power when he fought his only fight recently at that weight class yet he looked bigger than his opponent and his strikes spoke for themselves. In boxing the difference between a middleweight and a supermiddleweight is only a few pounds. But there is a 20 pound differential between middleweight and light heavy in MMA. That's a lot of pounds in which to fluctuate when the human body has a very low fat percentage.

   Brock Lesner? Sort of sloppy if you ask me. One thing you can't do is question his heart, dedication, HIS SIZE and his potential. As primarily a wrestler, he managed to out strike Randy Couture who should have retired long ago.

   Bear in mind he is still inexperienced and his rate of improvement has accelerated in each fight he has had. It's not just his size and strength but the quickness for someone his size. The punching power is excellent and stamina seems good. Randy is a Hall of Famer but is long past his peak.

   Lesners fight against Fedor would be his undoing only if Fedor would join the organization. As far as I can tell, there isn't much excitement left in the heavyweight division apart from Lesnar, he will likely sustain the championship belt for a while.

   Fedor is the best but give Lesner two or three more years and he could surpass Fedor who right now is in a class by himself.

Comment by Bradford — November 18, 2008 @ 6:04 am

6. Raevmo Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 7:56 am

   Bradford:

   A bunch of cats own you Raevmo? That might explain your sometimes stalking commentary. I'm surprised your cats let your girlfriend near you.

   I'm beginning to suspect you are a little obsessed with my fiancee. But yes, she faces a daily struggle for territory on the bed. Such is the plight of being owned by cats.

Comment by Raevmo — November 18, 2008 @ 7:56 am

7. computerist Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 1:28 pm

   Silva has been touted as the best pound per pound fighter in the world of MMA. He probably is although, if we're talking about pound per pound, WEC bantamweight champ Miguel Angel Torres is a worthy challenger and much underrated in my view. Silva is a very balanced fighter and an impressive striker to say the least. I'm also impressed by his ability to carry weight effectively at the 205 pound class. I expected to see a relative drop in power when he fought his only fight recently at that weight class yet he looked bigger than his opponent and his strikes spoke for themselves. In boxing the difference between a middleweight and a supermiddleweight is only a few pounds. But there is a 20 pound differential between middleweight and light heavy in MMA. That's a lot of pounds in which to fluctuate when the human body has a very low fat percentage.

   Anderson SIlva's "natural" weight is around 195. It was either a decision to move up ten pounds or down ten, I suspect either weight class is in the comfort zone. On another note, a rumor had spread that Anderson Silva would switch over to boxing to prove to the world that MMA'ers are capable of winning against the likes of Roy Jones (under strictly boxing rules of course). Don't know if this will happen, but it'd be interesting and I'd definitely pay to see it.

   Bear in mind he is still inexperienced and his rate of improvement has accelerated in each fight he has had. It's not just his size and strength but the quickness for someone his size. The punching power is excellent and stamina seems good. Randy is a Hall of Famer but is long past his peak.

   Definitely, his speed is surprising, his power, not so much. By the words of Randy Couture, "thats one huge son of a bitch". Theoretically, all Brock needs to do is throw those hands, his knockdown punch of Randy didn't even land properly, it merely grazed the back of his head, that is power you can't train for. His speed adds to that power and that makes him all but dangerous to anyone who steps in against him. His only weakness is BJJ and is the reason he lost his previous fight. I am surprised ol'Randy didn't switch up tactics, trying to out wrestle Brock was his undoing.

   Fedor is the best but give Lesner two or three more years and he could surpass Fedor who right now is in a class by himself.

   Fedor is incredibly talented. Personally, I think the only threat worthy match for Fedor at the moment is Anderson SIlva (I probably sound crazy here don't I? ). Even though there is relatively large offset in weight, I suspect weight is not a factor for Anderson since he controls the fight and not the other way around. Second pick would be Gabriel Gonzaga. After watching him knockout Cro Cop the way he did and realizing that Fedor had significant amount of trouble versus Cro Cop, I could see him being a definite challenge.

Comment by computerist — November 18, 2008 @ 1:28 pm

8. Bradford Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

   computerist:

   Fedor is incredibly talented. Personally, I think the only threat worthy match for Fedor at the moment is Anderson SIlva (I probably sound crazy here don't I? ). Even though there is relatively large offset in weight, I suspect weight is not a factor for Anderson since he controls the fight and not the other way around. Second pick would be Gabriel Gonzaga. After watching him knockout Cro Cop the way he did and realizing that Fedor had significant amount of trouble versus Cro Cop, I could see him being a definite challenge.

   The logic of match-ups. Ali and Frazier were almost evenly matched. Ali easily defeated Foreman who easily defeated Frazier. Norton beats Ali and gets knocked out in the first round by Foreman. Silva would have better possibilities against Fedor than Lesnar IMO. But Lesner would have a better chance against Silva than Fedor in my view. It's about matching up strengths and weaknesses. Then again they do not fight on paper which is what makes these things interesting.

Comment by Bradford — November 18, 2008 @ 5:57 pm

9. Bradford Says:
   November 18th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

   Big 3 carmakers beg for $25B, warn of catastrophe is the title of a Yahoo news story. A pattern has emerged. Cite economic difficulties. Play the politics of fear card and get money from the fed- your money. Then set the stage for the next round of pandering based on fear.

Comment by Bradford — November 18, 2008 @ 7:28 pm

10. Rob R. Says:
    November 18th, 2008 at 8:29 pm

    Raevmo: I must say that a more feline rather than leporidan approach to open threads has been a major improvement since Mike Gene's departure from TT.

    Me, I miss the rabbits.

    EuropeanScienceFoundation: Complex Systems And Mars Missions Help Understand How Life Began

    [...]

    Complex systems chemistry uses computer models to simulate combinations of reactions, involving membrane forming reactions, self-replicating nucleic acids and metabolic energy-producing reactions. Then it examines how these systems develop in time and space.

    Breaking the symmetry

    One promising area is the discovery of reaction systems that lead to the spontaneues generation of chiral asymmetry. It is a universal property of life that compounds such as amino acids and sugars exist exclusively in a one-handed form although both forms are equally likely from an energetic point of view. It is quite difficult to achieve this asymmetry in non-living chemical reactions. Chemistry tends to create equal proportions of the different forms, which behave like objects and their mirror images. "The recipe for asymmetry is the co-occurence of positive and negative feedback loops within such systems," says Von Kiedrowski.

    Complex systems chemistry cannot tell the story of life entirely. "We are in the same position as the physicists trying to understand the origin of the universe," says Von Kiedrowski. "We will not know exactly how life began, because we do not know the precise conditions at the time, but we can get a good model of how it could have happened with this approach."

Comment by Rob R. — November 18, 2008 @ 8:29 pm

11. computerist Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 4:20 am

    The logic of match-ups. Ali and Frazier were almost evenly matched. Ali easily defeated Foreman who easily defeated Frazier. Norton beats Ali and gets knocked out in the first round by Foreman. Silva would have better possibilities against Fedor than Lesnar IMO. But Lesner would have a better chance against Silva than Fedor in my view. It's about matching up strengths and weaknesses. Then again they do not fight on paper which is what makes these things interesting.

    You bet!
    In the UFC, this is how fight cards are made, they analyze strengths and weaknesses of each fighter, not merely going by who has the better winning streak. Unfortunately they can't put an analysis on style as easily. As the saying goes, styles make fights. Its not just what you do its the way that you do it in a given situation that makes it effective against any given opponent, this makes for interesting as well as unpredictable fights. Different opponents require a specific recipe, a difference in one ingredient is the difference between a defeat or victory. Lets give a dimes worth of credit to chance as well, luck has played a very minor role in the ring as well as in the octagon. "Evenly matched" opponents are more likely to win by luck then skill. Greater skilled opponents are more likely to win by skill while lesser skilled opponents the reverse. This is in fact plain obvious, except the logic crumbles when we go back to the "style" factor. One can only talk about "evenly matched" opponents but the style takes the fight where it was determined even before the fighters stepped into the ring. All just my opinion, of course.

Comment by computerist — November 19, 2008 @ 4:20 am

12. Karla Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 7:09 pm

    Hi Folks,

    sorry Bilbo - i still owe you some answers about Behe´s Test II. Fact is, lightning has struk the tree next to my house and i had major repair work the last couple of weeks. After having been made redundant some month ago, financing wasn´t easy and i had so many things on my mind, that i din not post anything anywhere. If you are still interested, I will give you the low down of some of the procedings concerning Halls paper from the point of view of a lab creature.

    To anyone else - I have sporadically reading the posts here and I am interested in the telic approach, but I adress the subject from the point of view of someone, who has to design new experiments to adress unsolved questions, as opposed to someone who evaluates the presented data. To people like me, it would be interessting to find out, what the telic proposals are. I have some ideas about this concerning the data for trichoplax adherence and the resolved genome, but in general ideas are far too vague to translate them into working hypothysises and testing procedureses.

    So, Bilbo give me a shout, if you would like clarification and to anyone else - what do you want lab-people to investigate?

    All the best from the leaky roofed
    Karla

Comment by Karla — November 19, 2008 @ 7:09 pm

13. fifth monarchy man Says:
    November 19th, 2008 at 9:40 pm

    Hey Karla,

    to anyone else - what do you want lab-people to investigate?

    Please please please pick mine

    Some one needs to look for a hibernation mechanism I suggest that the best place to start the search is ultra conserved DNA.

    Please please please

    Peace

Comment by fifth monarchy man — November 19, 2008 @ 9:40 pm

14. fifth monarchy man Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 8:23 am

    what do you want lab-people to investigate?

    Most IDers would say that a human level intelligence was one of the goals of the designer. When we dell on that we are immediately struck by the length of time that it took to produce such intelligence on earth.
    So I think a great area of research would be to catalog the importance of their being a human level intelligence at this time on the earth and in the universe.

    For example:
    We are here just in time to stop a permanent ice age
    We are probably here just in time to prevent another mass extinction event caused by an interstellar collision
    We are here just in time to be able to learn the secrets of our universe

    I’ll bet there are many other “just in time” coincidences that could be compiled and cataloged

    what a great subject for a book

    Peace

Comment by fifth monarchy man — November 20, 2008 @ 8:23 am

15. Karla Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

    Hi fmm,

    Thanks for the link to the essay.
    I have never worked on hibernation, so I will treat this as a thought experiment into how you could arrive at a viable research proposal.
    First of all, which organism would you want to use for you investigation? This decision would be followed up by collecting all the known facts about the physiological processes involved in hibernation from the organismic down to the cellular and molecular level. After that, you would have to form a working hypothesis. Since you suggested that ultra conserved DNA sequences play a role, you would have to translate that hunch into an experimental set-up. For example: The ultra conserved domain X influences the physiological process Y. It is necessary to clearly define Y – since it is used to determine HAS EFFECT/ HAS NO EFFECT in respect to the investigated ultra conserved DNA sequence.
    You would probably have to try different processes to find a suitable indicator and if there are more than one ultraconserved DNA sequences, you will have to test them all, or at least a subset which is present in other hibernating organisms (taking into account the various forms of hibernation). Also you will have to establish a system to make sure that you do the tests in the presence or absence of the investigated sequence – probably possible through knock-out mutants, if you have a suitable organism that you are investigating. Even better would be a system that is accessible by in-vitro testing, but that depends again on the process Y.
    Once you established a correlation between a conserved sequence and process Y, you could further investigate the functionality of the sequence through mutagenesis of the sequence.
    But to cut this short, at the end of the day, a successful experimental approach would only clarify questions about the mechanism and the function of a DNA sequence, which has up to now no known function.
    What I am trying to point to, is that the data generating side of science looks at structures and processes (mechanisms and functions) and has set additional requisites, that those findings have to be repeatable and intersubjectiv. The experimental part can only determine HOW something works, but cannot establish WHY it is there in the first place.

    The proposals in M. Schermers essay are very reasonable and surely are testable hypothesis. They are based on the assumption, that if you knock the described genes out or damage them and unchanged development ensues, they do not have a function in the analysed organism. On the other hand, the results, should a defect, a shift in protein-pattern, a change in body-plan, effects on biochemical pathways, alterations in cell-cell communication, receptor density and distribution (to name a few testable parameters) be observed, are also valuable in establishing the role of the gene in the observed organism – after all, this was the procedure that brought to light the function of Pax, Hox and the likes to start with.
    As you can see, there is no difference in the experimental approach. The difference lies in the definition of what constitutes as evidence for the two assumptions.
    a.) The assumption is, that a particular gene has no effect in the organism and indicates therefore front-loading. In this case it will be required to demonstrate, that all possible effects (I listed a few above) were tested negativ and that this holds true over all stages in the life-cycle of the organism. The question will be, have we tested for all possible effects or just the ones we could think or were aware off at the time? If you do find an effect, you assumption is out of the window anyway.
    b.) The assumption is, that a particular gene has a function in the organism and has no implication on front loading. It is required to show a function, any function, any repeatable effect. You can arrive at this via educated guess, forming a sequence of likely or plausible hypothesis and get effect/no effect results. You only need testing until you get an effect. If you don’t seem to be getting anywhere, the valid conclusion is, that none of the tested scenarios showed an effect, but you cannot rule out an effect in a scenario, that you did not test for.
    Most people working in biology prefer the second assumption as a working hypothesis, since it offers at least a chance to come up with solid, repeatable, intersubjective evidence and if you work properly, it is defensible and may lead to new hypothesis to work on.

    As for Trichoplax adherens, it is unfortunately unsuited to such investigation for the time being. Although it is simple and easy to keep in the lab, sexual reproduction has been postulated based on results of allel distribution in wild-typ populations, but was so far not observed in vitro. So not all developmental stages can be observed to establish, whether defects occur, when knocking out the homologues to transcription-factors.

    All the best
    Karla

Comment by Karla — November 20, 2008 @ 2:26 pm

16. Bradford Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 6:44 pm

    This is a disgrace. Forcing private businesses to change their modes of operation so a disgruntled individual can have a date.

Comment by Bradford — November 20, 2008 @ 6:44 pm

17. fifth monarchy man Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 9:48 pm

    Karla

    I’m afraid I’ve not made myself clear enough

    By hibernation mechanism I mean a mechanism to protect sections of unexpressed DNA from selection pressure.

    Not a mechanism that enables animals to hibernate

    Such a mechanism would enable a designer to frontload information to be expressed at a necessary time and insure its integrity till then

    I predict that such a mechanism will be found to be shielding untraconserved unexpressed sections of the genome

    Peace

Comment by fifth monarchy man — November 20, 2008 @ 9:48 pm

18. Bradford Says:
    November 20th, 2008 at 10:14 pm

    fmm:

    I’m afraid I’ve not made myself clear enough

    By hibernation mechanism I mean a mechanism to protect sections of unexpressed DNA from selection pressure.

    Not a mechanism that enables animals to hibernate

    I had to chuckle at that. Maybe this link would help clarify things.

Comment by Bradford — November 20, 2008 @ 10:14 pm

19. Rob R. Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 12:58 am

    Preview function?

    When I tried to preview my last couple comments they were submitted instead. Is it just me? Just FYI.

Comment by Rob R. — November 21, 2008 @ 12:58 am

20. Guts Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 1:05 am

    oops thanks i'll work on that. Hopefuly the edit function still works. I'll be turning off preview for now.

Comment by Guts — November 21, 2008 @ 1:05 am

21. GringoRoyale Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 6:41 pm

    This is fun. Google "zachriel" and "scientifically vacuous"….
    Don't forget to click "repeat the search with the omitted results included".

Comment by GringoRoyale — November 21, 2008 @ 6:41 pm

22. Bradford Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 7:08 pm

    Hi GringoRoyale. Haven't heard from you in a while. Guts is offering free drinks in another thread. Take advantage of his hospitality.

Comment by Bradford — November 21, 2008 @ 7:08 pm

23. Rob R. Says:
    November 21st, 2008 at 7:09 pm

    oops thanks i'll work on that. Hopefuly the edit function still works. I'll be turning off preview for now.

    Yeah, the edit was working for me. Just the Preview and Post Comment buttons seemed to be doing the same thing… didn't have any other issues.

    (edit): Still doing the same thing, Guts. I clicked preview on this comment and it submitted it instead. Edit is working (obviously), though. *shrug*

Comment by Rob R. — November 21, 2008 @ 7:09 pm

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