When will be the next big leap foreward?

[Upisoft]

Damn, another monochrome piece of information on my screen...

 

[Max™]

Wait... is it seriously being discussed that scientists shouldn't consider the age of the earth/universe to be known facts?

That if we let go of what we have learned through trial and error, we could advance through... what, miracles?

Hallelujah, I discovered a dark matter particle just now, amen!


Edit: incidentally, if you used a lot more of your brain at once, I think the technical term would be a grand mal seizure?

 

[Phrak]

An advance in theoretical physics occurred august 17, 2010. In four years or so, it might be presented in a form that even a few of the the most calcified will grudgingly accept.

 

[Upisoft]

An advance in theoretical physics occurred august 17, 2010. In four years or so, it might be presented in a form that even a few of the the most calcified will grudgingly accept.

Is there any information on what it might be? BTW, you said "theoretical"... Is there any indication it will not stay theoretical only?

 

[jambaugh]

[Re: Liquid Tin Anode SOFC] You're going to keep me busy looking up these things for a long time aren't you? Some neat stuff...

This is quiet one which has me very excited. The tech is done, the engineering is all that's left and the promise in terms of distributed power generation and efficiency could be dramatic.

[Re: physological modeling] I don't know that I'd trust #2 here, at least in the near future. The understanding of the processes in the human body is seriously lacking.

The interactivity of physiological systems is crucial to understanding it and we can't do proper experiments on humans for ethical reasons. But little by little we are developing understanding of components and I don't see why we couldn't run some single cell simulations soon. Then build from there.

Marx and Engels tried that, a paradigm designed on the theory that human beings could be perfected. It failed miserably, and caused the deaths of well over 100 million people in trying to implement it. I'll take our voluntary system of prices and free competition over a man-designed system any day.

It wasn't the paradigm which killed the people flawed though it was, it was the same old tyrannies we've seen throughout history. How about a paradigm based on the theory that human beings are a.) not totally rational but be mostly act towards rational self interest.

 

[Evo]

HA! You're hilarious. This is exactly what I am talking about... "Since I believe this, I'm going to watch and ignore everything I hear from the other side..." Then you act as if religion is at odds with science.

Enjoy the mediocrity.

Religious and/or overly speculative posts are not allowed here. Posts with no scientific merit are not allowed here.

 

[Barwick]

Religious and/or overly speculative posts are not allowed here. Posts with no scientific merit are not allowed here.

Well since apparently my posts which HAVE scientific merit and are backed up by evidence, are going to be deleted by said biased "scientists", I shouldn't bother wasting my time trying to reason with someone who's not going to be objective.

By the way, check your messages, either you didn't see it, or ignored it...

 

[inflector]

My prediction is that sometime in the next 10 to 15 years, a theory of quantum gravity will be found that explains a lot more open questions than it creates.

This will be the start of the next big leap forward in physics.

 

[georgir]

On average, mutations occur once every 10 million duplications of DNA, or 1E7
...
Let's go with 1 in 150 being either harmful or beneficial. Now figure out how many are neutral (thousands of times more than the # of beneficial/harmful ones), and we've got another 1 in 1E9 or so, leaving us with a probability of beneficial mutation of 1 in 1E16 or so.

Um sorry, but did you even spend a second to think about what you are posting? This last paragraph of yours is complete nonsense.

If 1 in 150 is not neutral, then 149 are 150 is neutral, plain and simple. that's 149 times more, not "thousands of times more".

Then, even if we go with your "thousands", your math still does not make sense. Take 1 in 1000 mutations being benefical, and a mutation happening every 1e7 divisions, means a benefical mutation happens every 1e10 divisions. The 1e9, 1e16 numers that you pull out of a hat are making my head hurt.

But these mistakes don't matter anyway, the whole calculation is pointless when you don't even know what the result means. You arrive at some huge number and go flaunting it around as some absolute probability. It should be probability per time and then you should sum it over the millions of years that evolution needs, or probability per birth, and you should sum it over the millions of organisms that are born between evolutionary steps. As it is now, you got something like probability per cell division, and to get probability per birth for example you should take into account how many cell divisions happen in an embryo before the sex cells are formed - a figure with which I can't help you unfortunately.

And even your starting assumption about the frequency of mutations is incorrect. I can't check the given reference, it may be true on average in normal conditions today, but it can vary greatly with different conditions, for example increased radiation, i.e. before the ozone layer was formed etc. The chance of mutations is also greater in the more complex process of meiosis, or the formation of sex cells, as well as in sexual fertilisation, than in the usual mitosis. Mutation of the already formed sex cells can also occur while they are idle in storage in an organism and not during a cell division at all.

P.S.: Just to ease up your calculations, I googled up an article about the first human family that had its DNA sequenced.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-10/family-genome-sequence-fewer-mutations-inherited-update1-.html
It says that previous estimates were for about 75 mutations passed to children from each parent or 150 total, and the new data showing around half that mutation rate. That is still huge, and no matter how little the chance of one mutation being benefical is, given a large enough population size and number of generations, it is obvious benefical mutations will occur.

 

[Barwick]

Um sorry, but did you even spend a second to think about what you are posting? This last paragraph of yours is complete nonsense.

If 1 in 150 is not neutral, then 149 are 150 is neutral, plain and simple. that's 149 times more, not "thousands of times more".

Then, even if we go with your "thousands", your math still does not make sense. Take 1 in 1000 mutations being benefical, and a mutation happening every 1e7 divisions, means a benefical mutation happens every 1e10 divisions. The 1e9, 1e16 numers that you pull out of a hat are making my head hurt.

But these mistakes don't matter anyway, the whole calculation is pointless when you don't even know what the result means. You arrive at some huge number and go flaunting it around as some absolute probability. It should be probability per time and then you should sum it over the millions of years that evolution needs, or probability per birth, and you should sum it over the millions of organisms that are born between evolutionary steps. As it is now, you got something like probability per cell division, and to get probability per birth for example you should take into account how many cell divisions happen in an embryo before the sex cells are formed - a figure with which I can't help you unfortunately.

And even your starting assumption about the frequency of mutations is incorrect. I can't check the given reference, it may be true on average in normal conditions today, but it can vary greatly with different conditions, for example increased radiation, i.e. before the ozone layer was formed etc. The chance of mutations is also greater in the more complex process of meiosis, or the formation of sex cells, as well as in sexual fertilisation, than in the usual mitosis. Mutation of the already formed sex cells can also occur while they are idle in storage in an organism and not during a cell division at all.

P.S.: Just to ease up your calculations, I googled up an article about the first human family that had its DNA sequenced.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-10/family-genome-sequence-fewer-mutations-inherited-update1-.html
It says that previous estimates were for about 75 mutations passed to children from each parent or 150 total, and the new data showing around half that mutation rate. That is still huge, and no matter how little the chance of one mutation being benefical is, given a large enough population size and number of generations, it is obvious benefical mutations will occur.

At risk of incurring the wrath of the moderators, who've already deleted multiple replies of mine because she claims they are "religious", despite being based on scientific evidence, I'll respond...

I'm reading back through my post and am not quite sure where I was going with the 1 in 150 turning into 1E9. I think I should have said "Now figure out how many divisions result in neutral mutations". Let's take a base for mutations of 1E7. Out of those, 1 in 150 will be either beneficial or harmful, resulting in a low end of 1E9 divisions resulting in beneficial/harmful mutations. Out of those, the vast majority are harmful (how many times does a mutation in humans result in cancer, vs how many times does it result in a human growing wings, or at least SOMETHING of benefit). Let's go on the absurdly low end and say 1 in 10,000 beneficial/harmful divisions end up being beneficial. That brings us to 1E13 on an absurdly low end, but let's go with it.

Now, take that 1E13 and assume a 5 part system (which is a very very very small system), each part of which offers no benefit on its own, unless all 5 parts are present. Therefore all of which must be developed in the same organism, or successive organisms, despite there not being any natural selection benefit to preserve those traits. Now you're looking at 1E65 chance of that happening (not 1E80 as I said before). It's still an absurdly large number.

Now average that over time:
Let's assume that the entire surface of the Earth is covered by bacteria, and the oceans, instead of being made up of water, are a soup made up entirely of bacteria. And every second for 5 billion years, every single bacteria reproduces.

So we have an absurdly high number of 1 E47 bacteria, reproducing every second for 1 E17 seconds. Given that, we have 1 E64 attempts at generating that 5 part system, giving a 10% chance at producing that incredibly simple system, IF every atom in the ocean and on the surface of the Earth was a bacteria, and IF they reproduced every second, and IF they all tried unique combinations (not repeating any previously tried ones), then you have a chance at producing that very simple system. If you want to get into more complex systems requiring 10 (still simple), 20, 40, 100+ parts, you're looking at very low chances. Just requiring 6 parts changes it to 1E78, and takes us from a 10% chance to a .000000000001% chance. 7 Parts makes it 1E91, so add 13 more zeroes prior to the 1 at the end of the decimal place...

Show me the "religion" in there moderators, and I'll pull the post. Again, when scientists are willing to set aside their preconceptions (like the one I'm discussing here), their eyes will be open to all possibilities for advancement, even if it contradicts their personally held beliefs.

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

RNA has a drastically higher mutation rate than DNA because of several DNA repair systems that can correct changes before they become fixed in the genome as mutations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation_rate"
I'm sorry, but I made a very cursory search for RNA transmission error rate and didn't find anything concrete. I'm sure that someone with even slightly more diligence can find it. I don't know how widely accepted this idea is, I read it in a Biology survey course textbook. It said that early life may have been based on RNA alone.

Edit: I forgot to add that it seems to me that what counts is not beneficial/harmful/neutral, but rather persistent.

 

[Upisoft]

At risk of incurring the wrath of the moderators, who've already deleted multiple replies of mine because she claims they are "religious", despite being based on scientific evidence, I'll respond...

Well, OK ... I'm in the mood to listen again. Although if your evidence is scientific you should publish it.

I'm reading back through my post and am not quite sure where I was going with the 1 in 150 turning into 1E9. I think I should have said "Now figure out how many divisions result in neutral mutations". Let's take a base for mutations of 1E7.

Ooooops... "Let's take ..." <- fill the gaps with whatever you wish.
Now, that is not science.

Out of those, 1 in 150 will be either beneficial or harmful, resulting in a low end of 1E9 divisions resulting in beneficial/harmful mutations. Out of those, the vast majority are harmful (how many times does a mutation in humans result in cancer, vs how many times does it result in a human growing wings, or at least SOMETHING of benefit).

Totally irrelevant. Evolution does not happen in an individual (except in a single cell organisms). Even if someone somehow grows wings (not having them in first place, as you compare them to tumor), it will be no evolution. It will be a miracle.

It is obvious that you don't understand the argument what is the evolution.

Let's go on the absurdly low end and say 1 in 10,000 beneficial/harmful divisions end up being beneficial. That brings us to 1E13 on an absurdly low end, but let's go with it.

Now, take that 1E13 and assume a 5 part system (which is a very very very small system), each part of which offers no benefit on its own, unless all 5 parts are present. Therefore all of which must be developed in the same organism, or successive organisms, despite there not being any natural selection benefit to preserve those traits. Now you're looking at 1E65 chance of that happening (not 1E80 as I said before). It's still an absurdly large number.

Now average that over time:
Let's assume that the entire surface of the Earth is covered by bacteria, and the oceans, instead of being made up of water, are a soup made up entirely of bacteria. And every second for 5 billion years, every single bacteria reproduces.

So we have an absurdly high number of 1 E47 bacteria, reproducing every second for 1 E17 seconds. Given that, we have 1 E64 attempts at generating that 5 part system, giving a 10% chance at producing that incredibly simple system, IF every atom in the ocean and on the surface of the Earth was a bacteria, and IF they reproduced every second, and IF they all tried unique combinations (not repeating any previously tried ones), then you have a chance at producing that very simple system. If you want to get into more complex systems requiring 10 (still simple), 20, 40, 100+ parts, you're looking at very low chances. Just requiring 6 parts changes it to 1E78, and takes us from a 10% chance to a .000000000001% chance. 7 Parts makes it 1E91, so add 13 more zeroes prior to the 1 at the end of the decimal place...

Take a coin, toss it million times and record the outcome. It is a string of "tails" and "heads". Now repeat the experiment. How probable it will be that the result will be the same? About 1 per 1E301030, if I'm not wrong in my calculations. Wow! You did the impossible from the first attempt!

 

[CRGreathouse]

So we have an absurdly high number of 1 E47 bacteria, reproducing every second for 1 E17 seconds. Given that, we have 1 E64 attempts at generating that 5 part system, giving a 10% chance at producing that incredibly simple system, IF every atom in the ocean and on the surface of the Earth was a bacteria, and IF they reproduced every second, and IF they all tried unique combinations (not repeating any previously tried ones), then you have a chance at producing that very simple system.

You're looking at the wrong thing. You're asking for the probability that a system will spring up all of the sudden, without any intervening steps. But no one is claiming that this happens!

Consider a simple RNA virus with 20,000 base pairs. With daily replication (not at all unreasonable) and 2 mutations per replication, it only takes 19 years for half the base pairs to change (in each of the descendant viruses). The actual rate of change is both higher and lower: there are major changes by mixing of RNA or DNA (as appropriate by type) which cause faster change, like the novel H1N1, but extreme drift changes take longer as the survival and suitability percentages are taken into account. (Most people think about the first, but the second is actually more important: most organisms are already at a local optimum and moving to a difference equilibrium is hard, tough made easier by changing environments.)

At a rate of 75 base pairs per generation, humans are ~40 million generations removed from chimps. Of course this overstates the distance, since there are chromosomal differences -- whole chromosomes can be doubled, which causes much more than 75 bp changes per generation. Considering how extremely high polysomy is, it's no surprise that this happens frequently enough to throw off the naive rate.

Accounting for the chromosomal differences in a naive way, I estimate more like ~8 million generations. According to Wikipedia, current scientific estimates for the CHLCA puts it at more like 6 million years, a rate perhaps 30 times faster than my very simple estimate -- but in the same sort of ballpark.

I know that some people make remarks suggesting that it's much harder because evolution was 'trying' to make humans (or whatever) and the chances of hitting a particular species out of the space of all possible species is remote. I'm sure no one here will make that silly mistake: there's no goal, no endpoint, just change.

 

[CRGreathouse]

I'm sorry, but I made a very cursory search for RNA transmission error rate and didn't find anything concrete.

I used one in 10^4. You can go ten times higher or lower depending on who you listen to and what organism you're talking about.

DNA has a much lower transmission error.

 

[Barwick]

Well, OK ... I'm in the mood to listen again. Although if your evidence is scientific you should publish it.

Tell me you're kidding...

http://www.discovery.org/a/2400
http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/klinghoffer200508160826.asp
http://www.rsternberg.net/OSC_ltr.htm
http://creation.com/contemporary-suppression-of-the-theistic-worldview
http://creation.com/darwinian-thought-police-strike-again
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/2971456/Royal-Society-scientist-loses-post-in-row-over-creationism-in-schools.html
http://creation.com/expelled-new-movie-exposes-persecution-of-anti-darwinists
http://creation.com/scientific-american-refuses-to-hire-creationist

 

[Barwick]

You're looking at the wrong thing. You're asking for the probability that a system will spring up all of the sudden, without any intervening steps. But no one is claiming that this happens!

No, that was the entire point. There exist (I wish there was a backwards "E" on computer keyboards... if you're a computer scientist you know what I'm talking about)... There exist systems that are composed of multiple constituent parts which on their own are either of no benefit, or harmful. Such a system would be required to all happen at the same time, or be preserved in subsequent generations. A system like this comprised of 5 parts is what I was talking about. 6, 7, 8, 20, 50, 100 part systems are out there, and each one is exponentially harder.

 

[inflector]

How did this interesting topic get derailed onto yet another creationist rant?

 

[Upisoft]

Tell me you're kidding...

http://www.discovery.org/a/2400
http://old.nationalreview.com/comment/klinghoffer200508160826.asp
http://www.rsternberg.net/OSC_ltr.htm
http://creation.com/contemporary-suppression-of-the-theistic-worldview
http://creation.com/darwinian-thought-police-strike-again
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/2971456/Royal-Society-scientist-loses-post-in-row-over-creationism-in-schools.html
http://creation.com/expelled-new-movie-exposes-persecution-of-anti-darwinists
http://creation.com/scientific-american-refuses-to-hire-creationist

Then sorry, it is not based on science. It is religion with science-like mask.

 

[Upisoft]

You're looking at the wrong thing. You're asking for the probability that a system will spring up all of the sudden, without any intervening steps.

Not exactly. He calculates the probability of existence of the organism. I agree it is quite improbable. The problem with his reasoning is that evolution does not tell that the organism must have evolved in this state only. There are many many possible paths for the evolution and this is the one that really happened. Like the example with the coin any combination of 1 million tosses is extremely improbable, but nevertheless if you do the experiment you will end up with one of them, no matter how "improbable" that is.

Why he thinks the evolution on Earth took the one and only one possible way, beats me.

 

[AJ_2010]

I've had many discussion with religious types before and its like talking to a wall. (Religious types = No offence meant - its just for use of a better phrase).

The basis of science is that it welcomes any theory to be disproved by repeatable verified experiments, that will demonstrate/measure/observe the outcome in developing a new better (more accurate) theory.
But with religion it is a closed loop of 'old aged facts' based on old scriptures that from the time of publishing means that any advancement can only occur by twisting the meanings of words within.

Religious types have a strong emotional/family/traditional connection with what they are supposed to believe and this often clashes with science. This is because science moves on at a staggering rate based on knowledge/understanding and the technology to perform more accurate measurements.

So trying to turn the mind of a believer is like trying to turn Frankincense into Gold ;)
They simply will not accept the rationality and accuracy of science because they are emotionally bound not to.

(Apologies if this offends anyone, its just my own opinion on the matter).
Is it possible we could get back on topic? :)

 

[inflector]

Yes, I cast one vote for taking the creation/evolution debate to another thread if you want to continue it.

 

[Upisoft]

Well, I had enough. He actually had only more propaganda. 8 links...

 

[Barwick]

Well, I had enough. He actually had only more propaganda. 8 links...

I was trying to spare you more reading by not going into further detail. The thread has gone way off topic. Regardless suffice to say, there's evidence on both sides, and for "the next big leap forward" to happen, scientists need to stop listening only to evidence that supports their own preconceptions about what's true. Fair enough?

 

[inflector]

An advance in theoretical physics occurred august 17, 2010. In four years or so, it might be presented in a form that even a few of the the most calcified will grudgingly accept.

What was this specific advance?

I doubt it is the survival skills of free-falling hamsters which shows up first under http://www.iopblog.org/todays-physics-news-tuesday-17-august-2010/" on the IOP blog.

 

[granpa]

for those that don't know, the topic is:

I was watching a HORIZON program on the BBC a few days ago about big bang theory and how the old notion of there being a singularity that exploded with no consideration of time before that, and how this is now being torn apart by new theories etc.

But my question is about when do you guys think the next real leap forward will be in physics and science knowledge as a whole?

Are we missing a single piece of maths that will open doors or missing some specific decive that we need to measure something important?
Will the HADRON collider and the possible evidence of the Higgs Boson prove to be the key?


It seems to me these days that science progression has levelled out and is waiting for some new 'thing' to happen. (Or maybe its because I've not been paying much attention to detail over the past number of years since leaving uni) ;)

 

[newage4energy]

My prediction is that sometime in the next 10 to 15 years, a theory of quantum gravity will be found that explains a lot more open questions than it creates.

This will be the start of the next big leap forward in physics.

Very good point made. Many say that closed system Newtonian has run its course and the new is in quantum.

 

[newage4energy]

Is there any information on what it might be? BTW, you said "theoretical"... Is there any indication it will not stay theoretical only?

Good questions, and Id really like to see how they accept something revolutionary. Despite all the changes in technology, people have a very complacent side and comfort zone.